ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how secluded women in the city of Kano, in northern Nigeria, participate in the market and how the economic activity relates to the formal division of labor by age and sex in Hausa society. It describes how women are able to be economically active through the control they exercise over children. The chapter considers the system of reproduction in Hausa society, focusing on urban Kano specifically. It deals with marriage, the institution of purdah, and the expectations of men and women in the domestic domain, exploring the religious ideology on which sex roles and patterns of male/female interaction are based, and the significance of this ideology in segregating male-dominated and female-dominated institutional spheres. The chapter deals with the economic system, places the domestic economy in a wider context, and examines the sexual division of labor in urban Hausa society. It is concerned with the roles of children and the division of labor based on age.
