The smallest social unit among Muslim Hausa is the gida, the compound: a man (the mai-gida, “master of the house”), his wife or wives and their children, and often other relatives and dependants. Several generations or brothers may share one compound, which also works as a farming unit.
Salamone, reporting late 20th-century fieldwork, describes marriage patterns that are typical of the Muslim Hausa: a man may have up to four wives, ranked in order of marriage, and marriage between cousins is preferred, with the marriage of the children of two brothers carrying special prestige. He reports inheritance by primogeniture. Divorce is common.
Among wealthier families, women’s seclusion (kulle) is a sign of status. Salamone argues that it also acts as an ethnic boundary marker: neighbouring non-Muslim groups, where women moved freely and worked openly, were thereby distinguished from the Muslim Hausa elite. Seclusion is practised unevenly, and many women still work, trade and study (see the chapter on Women).
Sources for this article
- Salamone 2010, ch. 1, pp. 2–5; ch. 10, pp. 110–111; ch. 13, pp. 133–141