Social Organization and Kinship

The organization of life in the local community is shared by a number of social units whose nature ranges from the simple elementary family to that of the extended kind. For purposes of general description, however, the basic unit may be termed a household, and it is known in Mende as mawε. ¹ It corresponds in the main essentials as to membership and function, to the joint family in that it is often three generations in depth and is relatively self-contained. Numerical composition varies very greatly, but a larger sized mawε may consist of one or two older men and their wives; some, or all, of their sons and daughters; husbands and wives of the latter; and a number of grandchildren. Such a household may also contain additional members in the shape of more distant blood and affinal relatives, as well as one or more dependants of the head of the household who are unrelated to the rest of the group. A small sized household, on the other hand, may consist merely of a man and his wives and their children, and one or two close relatives, such as his mother or sister. Properly speaking, however, a small sized household of the latter kind would not be spoken of as a mawε, unless the head or owner of it possessed at least four wives.