ABSTRACT
The controlled comparison of data collected from communities in Ghana practising matrilineal and patrilineal reckoning of descent and inheritance has on several occasions proved to be a fruitful procedure in the anthropological study of the domestic domain of social life in Ghana. This chapter discusses various issues including the education of the children of relatives, domestic budgeting, decision-making and the changes in both domestic norms and behaviour. The comments made by both men and women pointed to the belief that Akan husbands and wives living in Accra were likely to be comparatively segregated in two major respects, financially through the influence of persisting matrilineal inheritance as well as in the performance of domestic chores and the care of children. If the social and economic life of women is little hampered by childbirth and child-care, they may continue to reproduce large families of six or more even when they are in a position to limit their family sizes at will.
