accommodation, but many never manage to secure their own accommodation. Few new houses are built. New housing in some cities like Freetown, Accra and Nairobi are mainly
owned by nationals working abroad. Many young men and women hire rooms and share the
costs, because they cannot afford rooms of their own. Some governments however, are nowsupporting new housing schemes to meet the accumulated demand. Coping with poverty sometimes meant that there was no maintenance for houses. Many houses have thus deteriorated badly, sometimes dangerously. This is the case for both public and private
buildings.
-20-74. Among other measures adopted to cope with poverty was the simple ones of wearing clothes much longer than usual, and mending them for continued use. The market for imported second-hand clothes mushroomed in many cities, but many families still could not afford even the cheaper second-hand clothes. The situation became so critical in some rural communities that family members were forced to take turns sharing one piece of clothing.
Begging has taken on both traditional and new forms. There are those who pretend to be blind, maimed, or otherwise disabled. There are those with well rehearsed hardship stories, and there are those ostensibly collecting funds for fake charities. The industry seems to pay well.
V THE IMPACT OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS ON FAMILY STRUCTURES,
FUNCTIONS AND ROLES
and Shifts in Family Stnirtiir^ Functions and Roles
75. The proven resilience of the family as an institution has often belied the many predictions about its dissolution or transformation. This resilience derives from its purpose, structure and functions. So long as human beings long to continue their race, ethnic group or clan, they will seek ways and means of ensuring some reasonable way of promoting procreation and the upbringing of their children. Survival also requires coping with daily needs of food, clothing and shelter. These in turn require economic activity to produce or to buy the necessities of life.
76. The structure and functions of the family are then determined by historical circumstances and the values which best support the process of survival. Thus family structures and functions assume a permanence based on perennial needs. The mechanisms or procedures for meeting these perennial needs are modified or adapted to changing circumstances in order to ensure that the perennial needs that a family serves continue to be
met.
77. The family has a uniqueness of its own. The actors come and go. They change then-status and roles from childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood and old age. They change from
being dependent children to become married adults with children, and eventually with
grandchildren; from son or daughter, to father or mother, to grandparents or even great grandparents. The family also has a capacity to absorb both truncation and growth.
Members leave, some die. New people join the family as wives or husbands or newly born children. Orphaned children are absorbed by other families. Lonely widows or widowers are attached to other families of close or distant relatives depending on circumstances.
Whenever a society undergoes changes which are either traumatic or sudden or both, there is fear that the family will be adversely affected. In fact, the family also exists as a system for weathering such traumas through affective as well as material responses. Thus the recurring economic crises in Africa, and the sharp deterioration in lifestyles has challenged the family's ability to cope. Although no unique patterns have emerged, the incidence of less approved patterns has manifested itself.
78. The functions of the family and the roles of family members have been undergoing change not so much in terms of new functions and roles, but in terms shifts in emphasis and changes in priorities. The many functions of the family are still valid: procreation, sexual gratification, child rearing, caring, feeding, caring for the aged and disadvantage*! family members, socialization, training and placement in work, marrying-off members, and finally burying deceased members and inheriting their property. Many of these functions are no longer the strict preserve of the family. For example, schools take over part of the training functions of a family. Literate and educated parents may then find that they now have to study the school curricula in order to help their children with the homework. The roles of the parents have changed, but the family is still responsible for seeing that the children receive suitable education. Thus, depending on the status and circumstances of the family, and whether it is a nuclear or extended family, the roles of the family members will also become subject to different changes and shifts in emphasis.
79. As the men leave the rural areas to find work in the towns, the women learn to take full charge of the homes and adjacent farms. The men discover on their periodic return home, that being an intermittent husband can seriously undermine their authority as fathers and marginalise their role in the home. Some men resent this and try to re-assert their authority through violence. Violence between couples is reported to be escalating in some countries. As women take advantage of the recession which has affected many men in the formal structure and exploit the informal market for quick gain, conflict between couples are on the increase as women begin to challenge the traditional dominance of men. In West Africa, market women have traditionally controlled the informal markets as well as their incomes. What has happened in the decade under discussion is that the trend has become more pronounced.
80. The trend from the extended family to a contracted extended family and eventually to a nuclear or conjugal family has been observed over a long period of time, but this trend can be attributed more to education and changing lifestyles than to economic crisis. Christian missionaries had been predicting the demise of polygamy since the beginning of the century.
Economic crises can arguably put a break on men acquiring multiple wives, but in most African countries, polygamy is still widely practised. On the other hand, not all people become poor in such crises. A few may retain their wealth or even augment it. Therefore, women would find being a second or third wife to a man of means preferable to being a single wife in a starving home. It may even prove more viable where working co-wives pool resources together to maintain the household.
81. The exodus, especially of many young people from the rural areas, has certainly reduced the size of the extended family in situ. Where young people migrate far from home and to widely-placed localities, and in the absence of good communications, many relatives appear lost to their families. The remnant of the extended family tends to stick more closely together for mutual support. It is re-inforced from time to time by members who have succeeded materially. Despite the trend towards nuclear families as households, there is always prestige accorded to the man or woman who identifies with his/her extended family and helps them. There is a definite stigma against those who ignore their extended families altogether. They are considered selfish, arrogant and ungrateful and may risk a reprimand or sanctions from the family or clan.
-22-82. Where the extended family still owns land and property, there will be members who keep in touch and join in discharging the family's obligations to its members, alive or dead.
In many countries where customary law still applies in cases of inter-state succession, the extended family takes charge, and may recoup its fortunes this way. Weddings and funerals still serve as reunions for members of the extended family and other kinsmen.
83. A new trend which has become noticeable is the re-establishment of the extended family in the urban areas or even in neighbouring countries. It starts with a family member, with or without a conjugal family. As relatives come to town to seek better opportunities, and have no accommodation, they join the household, and gradually a sizeable number of the old extended family regroups in the same urban house, or neighbourhood. This also goes for ethnic groupings in particular neighbourhoods in the towns. Where the ethnic group m a neighbourhood is a small one, they may even operate as a new extended family or a mutual
support group in an unfamiliar environment.