IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v10y2021i5p174-d556420.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Role of Spousal Separation on Norms Related to Gender and Sexuality among Himba Pastoralists

Author

Listed:
  • Brooke Scelza

    (Department of Anthropology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA)

  • Sean Prall

    (Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA)

  • Kathrine Starkweather

    (Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL 60607, USA)

Abstract

The gender-specific labor demands of arid pastoralism often lead to spousal separation. Men typically respond in one of two ways: engage in mate guarding tactics, or loosen restrictions on female sexuality. Among Himba pastoralists in northwest Namibia, the latter strategy is dominant. Rooted in a history of matriliny, Himba have strong norms promoting female sexual autonomy. We propose that these conditions, combined with a stochastic resource base, have led to women utilizing a combination of formal and informal partnerships to meet their needs and the needs of their children. Aspects of Himba socioecology also increase the costs of mate guarding for men and lower the costs of extra-pair paternity, further bolstering a concurrency strategy. Using a mix of quantitative and qualitative data, we show how spousal separation, female autonomy, and concurrency are linked, and suggest that in this harsh environment having a mix of formal and informal romantic partners may be less costly and more beneficial than a system of monogamous marriage.

Suggested Citation

  • Brooke Scelza & Sean Prall & Kathrine Starkweather, 2021. "The Role of Spousal Separation on Norms Related to Gender and Sexuality among Himba Pastoralists," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-22, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:5:p:174-:d:556420
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/5/174/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/5/174/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan Stieglitz & Benjamin C. Trumble & Hillard Kaplan & Michael Gurven, 2018. "Marital violence and fertility in a relatively egalitarian high-fertility population," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 2(8), pages 565-572, August.
    2. Becker, Gary S, 1985. "Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 33-58, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jeffrey Winking & Jeremy Koster, 2021. "Timing, Initiators, and Causes of Divorce in a Mayangna/Miskito Community in Nicaragua," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-21, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gauri, Dinesh Kumar & Trivedi, Minakshi & Grewal, Dhruv, 2008. "Understanding the Determinants of Retail Strategy: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 256-267.
    2. Riekhoff, Aart-Jan & Vaalavuo, Maria, 2021. "Health shocks and couples’ labor market participation: A turning point or stuck in the trajectory?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 276(C).
    3. Jennifer Roberts & Karl Taylor, 2017. "Intra-household commuting choices and local labour markets," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(3), pages 734-757.
    4. Elizabeth Hirsh & Hazel Hollingdale & Natasha Stecy-Hildebrandt, 2013. "Gender inequality in the workplace," Chapters, in: Deborah M. Figart & Tonia L. Warnecke (ed.), Handbook of Research on Gender and Economic Life, chapter 12, pages 183-199, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Helmuth Cremer & Pierre Pestieau & Maria Racionero, 2011. "Unequal wages for equal utilities," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(4), pages 383-398, August.
    6. Maria Kravtsova & Aleksey Oshchepkov, 2019. "Market And Network Corruption," HSE Working papers WP BRP 209/EC/2019, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    7. Yongsung Chang & Mark Bils, 2002. "Cyclical Movements in Hours and Effort under Sticky Wages," Macroeconomics 0204004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Sami Napari, 2008. "The Early‐career Gender Wage Gap among University Graduates in the Finnish Private Sector," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 22(4), pages 697-733, December.
    9. Benjamin Bennett & Isil Erel & Léa H. Stern & Zexi Wang, 2020. "Paid Leave Pays Off: The Effects of Paid Family Leave on Firm Performance," NBER Working Papers 27788, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Katie Meara & Francesco Pastore & Allan Webster, 2020. "The gender pay gap in the USA: a matching study," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 271-305, January.
    11. Jane Waldfogel & Wendy Sigle-Rushton, 2006. "Motherhood and Women’s Earnings in Anglo-American, Continental European, and Nordic Countries," LIS Working papers 454, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    12. Julie Vinck & Idunn Brekke, 2019. "Gender and education inequalities in parental employment when having a young child with increased care needs: Belgium and Norway compared," Working Papers 1904, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    13. Cheal, David & Kampen, Karen, 1997. "Complementarity in the labor supply of husbands and wives," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 495-512.
    14. Daniela Andrén & Thomas Andrén, 2015. "Gender and occupational wage gaps in Romania: from planned equality to market inequality?," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-27, December.
    15. Stefania Albanesi & Claudia Olivetti, 2006. "Gender roles and technological progress," 2006 Meeting Papers 411, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Sumit Agarwal & Richard K. Green & Eric Rosenblatt & Vincent Yao & Jian Zhang, 2015. "Who Bears the Pen? Relative Income and Gender Gap in Mortgage Signing Order," Working Paper 9475, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate.
    17. Do, Quy-Toan & Levchenko, Andrei A. & Raddatz, Claudio, 2016. "Comparative advantage, international trade, and fertility," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 48-66.
    18. Thorsten Konietzko, 2015. "Self-Employed Individuals, Time Use, and Earnings," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 64-83, March.
    19. Philippe Adair & Hassiba Gherbi, 2020. "The Youth Gender gap in North Africa: Income differentials and Informal Employment," Erudite Working Paper 2020-06, Erudite.
    20. Carrasco, Raquel, 2001. "Binary Choice with Binary Endogenous Regressors in Panel Data: Estimating the Effect of Fertility on Female Labor Participation," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 19(4), pages 385-394, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:5:p:174-:d:556420. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.