ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses women's roles in agriculture and trading. It constrains Women's abilities to achieve economic independence through trading and agricultural production. Women's labor was more constant than men's since it was more labor intensive and since responsibility for domestic production covered a woman's life span. Women farmers' labor was crucial to agricultural production, indeed they had the primary role in producing food. Despite men's control over land and their ultimate control over the disposal of family resources outside the homestead, women's daily control of the food supply and commerce provided them with an opportunity to create some economic independence for themselves through trading. Women's councils also imposed sanctions against males who violated norms of social behavior. Before women initiated the limited change in the nature of their assembly, political interaction, and organization were based solely on the recruitment of males, especially those who were wealthy or who, through their lineage connections, had access to wealth.
