Matrilineality and matrilocality designate specific forms of social organization in which women occupy central positions (Aberle Reference Aberle, Schneider and Gough1961; Matthieu Reference Matthieu2007). The terms ‘matricentrality’ and ‘matrifocality’ are also applied in anthropological literature to attitudes and behaviours centred on the mother (and linked to unstable partnerships or long absences of men) (Schröter Reference Schröter2013: 7). Aberle calculated that matriliny is found in 15 per cent of societies and is associated with matrilocal or uxorilocal residence in 7 per cent of these. Some of these societies, especially those observed in Southeast AsiaFootnote 1 and on the East African coast (Lewis Reference Lewis1980; Bonate Reference Bonate2006) and offshore islands (Blanchy Reference Blanchy2010), are Muslim. The question that then arises is how these societies integrate the patriarchal type of normative framework that Islam introduced during its historical expansion from Arabia. In these societies, since the nineteenth century, modernist Islam and its contemporary Salafi and Wahhabi varieties have strongly influenced communities with regard to gender issues (Schröter Reference Schröter2013). Furthermore, migration and urban life are favouring the nuclear family and are rendering matrilineal land ownership and inheritance modes less relevant. Yet, as a result of their colonial and postcolonial history and present-day migrations, populations have also taken up Western ideas of gender equality and women's emancipation. In northern Mozambique, Bonate (Reference Bonate2006: 139) observes that matriliny has endured despite strong historical ties to the Swahili world and Islam's long presence. She argues that the colonial and postcolonial state contributed to this endurance and to maintaining the conflict between Islamic and ‘traditional’ African authorities, although the boundary between them is not clear-cut (ibid.: 158).
The question of male authority underlies the relation between matriliny and Islam. A man always controls the descent group in matrilineal societies, but who that man should be is negotiable. The so-called loyalty conflict between a man's descent group and that of his wife, identified as the matrilineal puzzle in the 1950s (Richards Reference Richards, Radcliffe-Brown and Forde1950), has been viewed differently by later researchers. As argued by Douglas (Reference Douglas, Douglas and Kaberry1969: 126), the straddling position of dual residence and dual loyalty gives men the opportunity to organize strong intergroup alliances. Matrilineal descent groups must exchange men to perpetuate themselves. Strategies of building matrimonial alliances between lineages are central to male political action. At the domestic level, these societies have been classified into three types according to the distribution of authority: husband dominant, brother dominant or neither dominant (Schlegel Reference Schlegel1972 quoted in Matthieu Reference Matthieu2007: 7–9). The latter is statistically associated with matrilocal residence and important social positions ascribed to women. This classification helps us see the space granted to women in the domestic sphere, but also in social and political life, and to identify forms of gender complementarity. Moreover, considering matriliny more as ‘a cluster of features’ than as a system (Saul Reference Saul1992: 346 quoted in Peters Reference Peters1997: 138) may explain its endurance in various political, economic and religious contexts.
Ngazidja Island is an example of a matrilineal and matrilocal Muslim society. It is situated in the Comoros archipelago in the south-western region of the Indian Ocean. On the island, matriliny is linked to a local political organization based on an age system and a male political assembly (Blanchy Reference Blanchy2010). I argue that this link explains the specific way in which matrilineal and Islamic ideologies interact.
Matriliny arrived with the African Bantu peoples inhabiting the island. Children belong to the matrilineage; land is passed down to women's children under the responsibility of the elder brother and sister, who are also responsible for the reputation and rank of their matriliny (hinya) or house (daho). All Comorians follow the rule of matri-uxorilocal residence: boys live in their mother's house and then in a bachelor house; and men in the houses of their wife, co-wives or successive wives.
The matrilineages and masculine age system interact within a local political structure named mdji, or city. Mdji refers simultaneously to the locality, village or town, and to the political assembly, formed by men representing their matrilineages in the age system. Men formally assemble on the public square (bangwe), which is bordered by masonry benches, or informally when meeting in their houses or elsewhere for various reasons. The formula ãda na mila refers to the oral law elaborated by each city. Ãda designates the ceremonial exchanges and feasts organized for the celebration of the lifecycle steps of a relative (birth, circumcision, wedding, funeral) and for gaining titles in the age and rank system. Shepherd (Reference Shepherd1977: 356) notes that ãda – meaning ‘custom’ in Arabic, but more usually ‘customary payment’ in Swahili and Comorian – does not have here the connotation ‘customary as opposed to Islamic’ which it has in Indonesia, despite the use of the same word.Footnote 2
Islam was introduced at the end of the first millennium by migrants of Arab and Persian origin. From the seventeenth century onwards, references are made to the arrival, mainly from Hadramawt, of sharifs (men who claim descent from the Prophet and follow a principle of patrilineal descent).Footnote 3 Comorians follow the Shafiʿi school of Sunni Islam and are affiliated with Sufi orders introduced at the end of the nineteenth century. The gradual expansion of Islamic institutions in the archipelago, later followed by French colonization, established a legal pluralism based on oral ãda na mila, Islamic jurisprudence and common law (largely inspired by French law). The contradictory resulting rules are applied on different scales or to different areas of public and private life.
Migration, mainly towards France, which is estimated as involving as many as a quarter to a third of Ngazidja's population,Footnote 4 has not lessened the preoccupation with the system of status at home. Rather, it is linked to it and fuels ãda exchanges. It is worth underlining that the status achieved by men and women engaged in ceremonial exchanges is without an equivalent in other available social spaces, but is not accessible to everyone. The aims and values presented by Islamic reformism therefore are of interest.
This article addresses the various ways in which the Ngazidja people negotiate gender and family relations by referring to matrilineal or Islamic norms and values. I show how matriliny, enacted in Ngazidja through the mdji (city), the local political organization, shapes gender conceptions and familial relations; and how Islamic norms and values provide direction with regard to gender interactions in the public sphere, conjugal and familial relations, and legal issues. Gender relations must be considered between brother and sister, the central kin pair in Ngazidja, as well as between husband and wife, marriage being ruled by Islamic law but alliances by other rationales. The two matrimonial regimes (Islamic marriage with or without ceremonial exchanges) first described by Shepherd (Reference Shepherd1977) illustrate this distinction. The key issue of male authority will be explored through the conceptions of fatherhood produced in matrilineal and Muslim contexts. I then examine the influence of Islamic reform and Western norms on family and gender relations in Ngazidja.
Gender relations in the context of matriliny and matrilocal residence
Matriliny is not the absence of men, nor is it a mirror image of patriliny. Rather, it is a specific organization of relations of authority, power and mediation between men and women (Peters Reference Peters1997; Schlegel Reference Schlegel1972). Matrilineal descent coexists with a quality of openness in effective descent groups, not only because each line depends on one woman's fecundity and often has to recruit members through indirect lineal descent, but principally because the connecting links between groups are male and the intergroup alliance is generally strong (Douglas Reference Douglas, Douglas and Kaberry1969: 125–6). In Ngazidja, conjugal unions are not necessarily long-lasting but father–child relations embody enduring alliances between lineages. Relations between brothers and sisters, on the other hand, are built on cooperation and great affection.
In each generation, the matrilineage in Ngazidja is made up of brothers and sisters. According to the context, matrilineage is said to be hinya, mba (womb) or daho (house). Daho can designate the whole lineage, a segment descended from one grandmother, or one household. The eldest have the title of head of the house and act in its name; for this, there has to be solidarity among brothers and sisters, although the roles of firstborn and younger members are distinct. Both boys and girls see their futures take shape within the framework of the possibilities and limitations offered to them by their family and social position; their rank among siblings and that of their mother and grandmother; the rank of their lineage in the city; and the wealth of the house (daho). The eldest boy and girl are responsible for the reproduction of the house and its public representation.
This reproduction occurs with the daughter's ‘great’ marriage, ndola nkuu, which takes place at significant cost and with the exchange of goods known as ãda. This specific matrimonial regime adds a political, economic and social dimension to the Islamic union. The preferred partner in a great marriage, which must occur between two lineages of the same city, is a real or classificatory cross-cousin, matrilateral or patrilateral (in this case, a man is given back to the father's lineage, which is appreciated). It must be the first marriage for the bride, but not for the groom, who is usually older and has already been married. The house is represented in the public sphere by the brother's and son's move up the rungs of age and rank (which also requires expenses and exchanges) (Blanchy Reference Blanchy2003).
When a young man enters the age system, he has the status of mnamdji, son of the city. He has to celebrate a great marriage to achieve the status of mdru mbaba (father) or mdru mdzima (accomplished man), which allows him to sit on and speak in the mdji (assembly). Each man's value on the marriage market depends on primogeniture, the rank of his matrilineage and, today, wages earned in the Comoros or through migration. The brother–sister firstborn pair is, then, at the centre of a system through which the houses exchange men, men provide the houses with children, and men represent the houses in the assembly.
Matrilineal descent mitigates male dominance. Women's authority is not always as public as that of men, but the example of Ngazidja shows that it is very real and even tangible. Women have an indirect influence in the public sphere and in the assembly. When an elder sister is married in a great marriage, the husband becomes an accomplished man by entering into her house. The woman, empowered by this achievement, mobilizes her husband's mediation to organize the marriage of her brother, who in turn becomes accomplished and can sit on the assembly. She also gives birth to children, raises them and later marries her daughter and passes the house on to her. Her son-in-law enters the house and becomes an accomplished man, over whom she may exercise a certain power, notably that of chasing him out if there is conflict, although the husband is usually respected as the one who brings honour (nde wutrio sheo) to the house. The cycle is then completed, and she has reached the political status of mdzadze wa ãda, mother of ãda. This status, available to the eldest daughters of each family, is a privilege but also a responsibility that each woman assumes according to her personality. She has to mobilize human and financial resources in her matrilineage, her quarter and her village (mdji) through a constant physical presence and monetary contributions.
Elder sisters are well aware that, by being married and then marrying their brother and daughter by ãda, they participate in the political process of producing men as fathers and accomplished men. An accomplished man has a part in the sharing of cattle meat and money in the mdji as long as he is married, and the meat, which is first sent to the wife's house, is then shared with the sister's. After divorce, the man has no access to these benefits until he marries again to a woman previously married by ãda. Indebted to sisters and wives, the men send them a considerable portion of the goods exchanged in a great marriage, which the women redistribute among their female groups: women of their matrilineage, their neighbourhood, and their associations. This sense of debt also takes root in the gendered division of domestic tasks, which makes all women ‘mothers’ to their male matrilateral kin – and sometimes they are addressed as such, mdzadze. In turn, these male kin receive frequent requests from the women for help in everyday life.
Young, educated men who wish to dedicate their resources to other projects often oppose the age and status system, but over time they are discredited in public and pressurized by their families, mainly their female kin, and eventually they submit. Women's views of this vary depending on their position and age. Older mothers view it favourably as they benefit after a lifetime of contributions. Younger sisters, married in religious ceremonies without ãda, live in the shadow of their elders with regard to exchanges. They can improve their status by marrying an intellectual educated in Arabic or French, a sharif, or a rich man. In the background in female society to some extent, younger sisters are, at the same time, freer to act independently, if possible with the help of a dynamic husband, either to create a new house by celebrating the great marriage of their elder daughter or granddaughter, or to devote themselves to different areas of achievement (Islamic or Western education, teaching, trade or business). The eldest sister (mhuu) has a destiny distinct from that of her younger sisters, called wanashe. This is also true to a degree for brothers; the younger siblings are all supposed to contribute first to the great marriages of their elder sister and brother.
The fact that men and women still find in ãda unparalleled conditions for personal achievement while fulfilling their collective moral commitments make Ngazidja unique from a sociological perspective (Blanchy Reference Blanchy2013). However, due to differences in position between elders and juniors, and between rich and poor, people are affected differently by ãda ceremonial exchanges and status. The old social divisions of lower status – fishermen and slaves – have nevertheless established their own political ‘cities’ on an identical model. Money from migration fuels competition between localities through great marriage feasts and the modernization of infrastructure.
Islamic norms, values and law in matrilineal and matrilocal society
Introduced before the eleventh century, Islam has been combined in various ways with local social and political organization (Blanchy Reference Blanchy2012). It also occupies a large place in the perception of personal and group identities. Comorians feel connected to the Muslim world through religious education and culture, the calendar of important celebrations, clothing, music and a certain ethos, and personal status is governed by Islamic jurisprudence. All individual and collective rituals, whether they involve the person, the house, the age system or the city, have an Islamic form (Chouzour Reference Chouzour1994; Ahmed Reference Ahmed1999; Blanchy Reference Blanchy and Hamès2007a). The call to prayer made during the husband's ritual entry into the house means that a Muslim is entering into a Muslim household. Despite a certain number of contradictions, legal pluralism makes the coexistence of institutions possible and offers social actors choices to justify their conduct. The real paradox between Islam and matriliny may thus be seen in the fact that, despite the conflicting rules about affiliation, inheritance and residence, matrilineal marriage, like marriage in (patrilineal) Islam, is easily dissolved and often unstable (Lewis Reference Lewis1980: 55).
Conflicting, alternating or complementary?
Depending on the case, the relations between ãda na mila (customary oral laws) and dini (religion) can be seen as conflicting, alternating or complementary. Hierarchies and the expenses of the exchange system contradict the religion's values of fraternity and disinterestedness. Muslim contestation sprang first from the Sufi orders introduced at the end of the nineteenth century by the networks of sharifs. The popular Shadhiliyya spread from Ngazidja throughout the archipelago, to Madagascar and the African coast, by a sharif born in Moroni, Sayyid Muhammad b. Shaykh Ahmad al-Maʿaruf (1852–1904). This was followed by the Qadiriyya and the Rifaiyya. The affiliation of Comorians to these Sufi orders became widespread in the middle of the twentieth century, strengthening the social networks of villages and urban districts. More secretive is the ʿAlawiyya, which is connected to the sharifs Ba ʿAlawi.
Sayyid Muhammad al-Maʿaruf criticized marked social inequalities, attacking in particular the expense of great marriages, and promoted a lifestyle based only on religious values called darwesh (meaning poor in Persian and designating a very pious Muslim in Arabic). He tried to develop the wedding celebration ki-darwesh or lillahi, which was limited to its religious form (Blanchy Reference Blanchy, Allibert and Rajaonarimanana2000). Here, people's choice between ãda and dini (religion) may be alternating or complementary. Men who declare themselves darwesh and refuse ãda engagements must therefore spend time in the zawiya (centre) of the Sufi order to which they belong rather than in the public sphere. On the other hand, accomplished men at the end of their careers sometimes withdraw from the public sphere and frequent only the zawiya.
Nevertheless, Islam influences ãda na mila forms of celebration. Ahmad b. Sumayt (1861–1925), the chief qadi of Zanzibar, and his son ʿUmar (1886–1973), both born in Ngazidja to Comorian women, acted for the Islamization of public life, notably by adopting the madjilis (a men's prayer meeting) in place of the secular concert, twarab, during great marriages. The reformist trend that is also observed in East Africa (Loimeier Reference Loimeier2003) is continuing, with the growing elimination from celebrations of the wadaha, a dance with pestles that highlights a woman's capacity for productive work and seduction. Changing norms of gendered behaviour are gaining ground.
Matrilocal residence and polygamy are good examples of complementary institutions. Owning a house protects the wife after divorce. The man circulates between his wives’ houses or villages according to precise rules and co-wives avoid meeting or interacting.
The circulation of women in public and their self-presentation historically have been strongly influenced by Islamic norms. Despite their power with regard to sexuality and fertility, they accept this control insofar as Islam is a marker of proper education and social distinction, as shown by the case of the bwibwi veil. In Ngazidja, all women wear the colourful veil called leso, a cloth first printed in Europe that appeared in Zanzibar in around 1875 (Beck Reference Beck2000: 105). However, the black, full bwibwi, introduced on the Swahili coast by the Hadramis sharifs around 1910 and initially worn only by their wives (Allen Reference Allen1981: 299; Le Guennec-Coppens Reference Le Guennec-Coppens1989: 191), is the prerogative of Ngazidja women married in a great marriage. It is reputed to bring out the beauty of women elevated in this way, and therefore powerful elder women wear it to display the political dimension of their status. It is thus an example of a symbol of female submission in a patriarchal order being transformed into a symbol of the power of Comorian Muslim ‘matriarchs’. For men, their usual public clothing is a compromise between Islam and the West (a long robe and matching jacket with an embroidered cap, or kofiya), but the various Islamic-style coats that a man is allowed to wear in the ãda ceremonies depend on his customary status, following a specific code.
Comorian legal pluralism reflects the complexity of the connection between matriliny and Islam with regard to personal law (people and assets). Individual and family law is governed by Islamic jurisprudence (the Shafiʿi school) and applied by qadis. It deals with marriage, separation and inheritance. It does not contradict the principle of matrilocal residence, but it is not compatible with the rules of transmission for lineage lands through the maternal line. Custom governs land tenure law for the unregistered ownership or possession of property, notably manyahuli or undivided lineage lands. Islamic jurisprudence governs mulk, or personal property, the purchase and sale of which are registered with the qadi in acts of hatwi. French substantive law is also applied when registering land, and complaints in this area are brought before tribunal magistrates. The first of these three legal practices is based on an oral law spoken in Comorian and uses oral accounts and testimony; the second is based on laws written in Arabic; and the third on laws written in French. They are complementary, hierarchical or even conflicting depending on the context.Footnote 5 In 2010, eighteen Comorian qadis were integrated as court magistrates to help deal with family affairs. In practice, adjustments are made, as can be seen in the transfer of land and houses, which are predominantly owned by women.Footnote 6 In Ngazidja, the main authority over manyahuli land remains uncles (Saïd Reference Saïd2016), who have only usufruct. However, sometimes predatory uncles misappropriate lineage assets for their own benefit, especially when representing their sisters and nieces in legal matters that are out of the women's control. A married man is supposed to cultivate the land owned by his wife and may also be allowed to use her manyahuli. Upon his death, the man's immovable property can be claimed by his sisters, but more often than not he has nothing personal to bequeath since everything has already been distributed inter vivos. His personally owned land (mulk) will already have been passed down to his daughters (especially land that has been, or can be, built on) and sons. Therefore, the Islamic rule of division, which favours boys, is rarely applied in this context. Collective property, as well as the difficulties and costs involved in the process, prevents the growth of land registration with equal rights for men and women (Saïd Reference Saïd2016: 19).
Matriliny, Muslim marriage and conjugal relations
All marriages are based on the Islamic mafungidzo (Arabic (Ar.) nikah) and are concluded by the gift of a dowry, mahari, by the husband to his wife. The husband must support his wife and children and the wife must be sexually available and perform domestic chores for her husband.
Ali, aged thirty, from Mdjoyezi, who married without ãda and is the father of three children, is a younger brother but considered to be the wealthiest sibling as he is employed in the capital. Two of his wife's younger sisters live at his home and he regularly covers their expenses. ‘I do not have to,’ he explains. ‘It is by feeling, since we live together.’ His wife's younger brothers – a student and an apprentice mason – take their meals there, as do the sons of his own sisters on occasion. His wife sometimes sends food to his mother in Mdjoyezi when she hears that ‘she has nothing to eat’.
Stable couples exist, but most people marry two to four times during their lives. Polygyny is not very common and is usually limited to two wives. In 2012, it applied to 7.3 per cent of married men in Ngazidja.Footnote 7 The wali or legal guardian is generally chosen from among the male relatives in accordance with Islamic jurisprudence, but in the event of the father's death, it is most often his uterine nephew who takes over his responsibilities, notably the task of finding a husband for his orphan cousin, or marrying her himself.
Ma Iboura is the only daughter of the elder line of a matrilineage in Dembeni. She was married in a great marriage by her maternal uncle, then married again to an accomplished man from another city who was integrated in Dembeni's political assembly or mdji, and chose her third husband herself, an accomplished man from another city who cultivates cassava.
Women's rights are staunchly defended in daily interactions. Polygynous men practising uwili (having two or more wives) can be driven out by the wife they are attempting to wrong: for example, the man who went to his other wife on the eve of id al-fitr at the end of Ramadan without respecting the system of alternate nights, and who thus celebrated the festival in the other house. Likewise, a precise and full calculation of reparations is made for those who seduce young girls: the man must marry the pregnant girl, but also retroactively pay her keep during the pregnancy as well as the mahari payments involved in marriage. Nevertheless, conjugal relations are far from being the only context of violence against women in Ngazidja; they are also exposed to violence from their kin.Footnote 8
Four of the seven ways to divorce that are permitted by Islamic law are practised in the Comoros: twalaka (Ar. talaq raji), the reversible single or double repudiation of the wife pronounced by the husband, which allows him three months to change his mind; definitive triple repudiation (talaq bâbl); the faskh judgment passed by the qadi if the husband does not fulfil his duties, through which the wife can withdraw from the marriage and be married again after a legally prescribed period; and lastly the khul‛ payment, which is made by the woman who wishes to divorce without a reason, if the husband accepts (Guy Reference Guy1956: 50). Khul‛, which is mentioned in the classic texts of Islamic jurisprudence, is connected to specific gender and kinship relations (Fortier Reference Fortier2010) and is thus favoured by matriliny. It is not widely practised in the countries where it appeared in the 2000s in the new family codes, including Egypt (Rude-Antoine Reference Rude-Antoine2010). In Kwambani, Ngazidja, of the eighteen complaints for marital conflict registered in 1982 by the qadi, eight came from wives whose husbands did not provide maintenance and were resolved by faskh.Footnote 9 In one case, the wife asked to be divorced (hufungua) and the husband agreed to repudiate her with one twalaka. Khul‛ was mentioned in only one case and was asked not by the wife but by the husband, who had been chased from the house. The couple were very young, aged nineteen and twenty, and had married earlier in the year. Through this repurchase, the husband was reimbursed for the mahari. Islamic marriage is not valid if the mahari is not effectively given to the bride (this was the subject of eight complaints). Some husbands promise to pay later and the wife's or her kin's requests may continue long after divorce. If the husband refuses the khul‛, the wife has no other choice but to force him to leave by refusing domestic and sexual services.
In the Comoros, repudiation pronounced by the husband means that the husband must leave the house. Furthermore, in Ngazidja, the relationship between the husband and his wife's house can easily take precedence over the couple's relationship. Everything depends on the marriage regime (whether or not it is a great marriage) and whether it is endogamous to the family or the city. A mother-in-law has the power to make a son-in-law leave if he displeases her, especially if he has been at fault. He may request mediation from the old accomplished men, since, if there has been a great marriage, separation will affect his position in the mdji assembly (he cannot take part in feasts and the distribution of goods if he no longer lives in the house of a great marriage). If they do not wish to remarry, older divorced or widowed men eventually move into an independent room in a sister's house – a house that they helped build – and take their meals there.
The 2005 Comorian family code gives an important weight to conjugal ties and ignores lineage ties. As in colonial times (Blanchy Reference Blanchy and Dodille2009), matriliny is not presented as a point of reference in response to Western universalizing values and the rules of Islam. Women's organizations attempt to protect women and children by insisting on the importance of maintenance payments. However, conjugal ties are very fragile in the Comoros since, in the Shafiʿi school of law, husbands can repudiate their wives three times in a single pronouncement. Arrangements concerning matrilocal residence are cited simply in the code as ‘local practice’, although not supplying one's daughter with a house is considered dishonourable: ‘Each daughter at the time of her marriage [has the right to] accommodation built by her own parents in accordance with custom’ (Article 82) and ‘the furniture with which the house is stocked remains attached to this house even if it has been purchased by the husband to equip his wife's house’ (Article 84).
The rapid separation allowed by Islamic law fits with the matrilineal and matrilocal organization. The husband may gradually impose himself as mbaba daho, father of the house, but in many cases he does not stay long. Although the family code tries to reinforce the legal responsibility of a father towards his offspring, children often depend on their mother's new husband and their maternal kin for their daily life.
The father's role and authority in Ngazidja
Indeed, the greatest tensions between matriliny and Islam can emerge in the image of the father, and his place and role with regard to children (Blanchy Reference Blanchy, Latchoumanin and Malbert2007b). In the myths of origin of great lineages, the female ancestor can marry anyone; what counts is an auspicious site for her fertility and for founding her house. Local representations of fertility show the unborn child as a seed, a plant or a nut – vegetable images that dismiss the father figure. Other myths evoke the masculine force that the woman must capture in order to procreate. They describe young girls abandoned at night under a tree (to the impregnating potency of a jinn) who give birth to boys endowed with unusual strength and so are future warriors, or a village in which initially only girls were born and had to marry powerful men coming from elsewhere, such as warriors and kings, so that they could father sons. An auspicious site is therefore not enough – virile potency is required. Among uterine siblings, people are quick to detect the trace of fathers in different physical aptitudes. This transmission also relates to intangible elements such as status and associated habitus. It is therefore important for the house that a man of ‘good blood’ enters. This is how the imperative rule of feminine hypergamy is justified in Ngazidja: the husband must be of the same or higher status than his wife and his wife's kin (although this hypergamy may favour gender hierarchy).
The Islamic theory of procreation is incorporated into these beliefs. In addition to the auspicious site and the ‘blood’ of the father there is Allah's gift of the soul. The Comorian father recognizes his child by organizing a succession of Islamic rituals completed by the customary exchanges and gifts: protective prayers throughout pregnancy, followed by the giving of a name, the aqīqa ritual and the first haircut after the birth, and lastly the circumcision of the son. During the child's first outing, the newborn baby is shown the mosque and then his or her father's house.
In Ngazidja, when referring to a man's children, one lists the matrilocal houses in which they were born – in other words, where the father ‘dispersed his blood’. The houses are named after the mother or even after the uncle: ‘He has fathered a child at so-and-so's house.’ On the other hand, when talking of a woman's children, they are cited by their name followed by the name of their father in accordance with the current Islamic formula: ‘She gave birth to Ali Bakar, Fatima Bakar, Amina Mwendze, Muhammad Mwendze, etc.’ One therefore indirectly names the husbands who have successively entered the mother's house and who are the children's legal fathers. Even with teknonyms, the father's name is given for further precision: it is not enough to say ‘Ma Ali’ – one says ‘Ma Ali Bakar’.
The father's authority and responsibility concern his children first but can be enlarged to cover the whole house. When he is married by ãda to the elder daughter of a house, he must act in such a way as to impose himself as mbaba daho, father of the house. A man becomes a political father through his great marriage and represents his wife's house in the city mdji while his wife's brother is still a mnamdji, or son of the city. Thus, as a father, first he accompanies his wife's brother to his bride's house when the brother marries in a great marriage. Second, he has a duty to give children to his wife's house. Third, the cycle of his own ãda marriage ends when he pays for his son's circumcision celebration, which makes the boy fit for a later marriage. From then on, the father has fulfilled his obligations to the house, even if he divorces and leaves. He may also organize alliances between his wife's and sister's children. It is worth emphasizing here that when talking about their maternal uncle, mdjomba, many men employ the word ‘babangu’, ‘my father’,Footnote 10 as well as when talking about their father-in-law.Footnote 11 Thanks to these multiple domestic responsibilities, men can achieve high status in the ãda na mila.
In Dembeni, Hadji Ahmed, a trader and vanilla producer, married by ãda an educated woman working as a midwife. Later he married his two daughters by ãda. For the elder, a teacher, he took his sister's only son into his matrilineage. Then he pushed her to marry again with another man from the city with whom a second great marriage was celebrated. The economic exchanges were very favourable to the matrilineage of Hadji's daughter. After submitting to her father's strategies, in 2002 the daughter finally chose her third husband, a civil servant of her own age.
The quality of sharif, transmitted exclusively through the paternal line, assumes a certain importance in marriage strategies: the sharifs belong to the ‘men of value’ whom houses seek to acquire for their ‘blood’ (their qualities transmitted to their children), even if the conjugal union does not last. The sharifs, descendants of the Ba ʿAlawi clan from Hadramawt and already present in Lamu, Pate, Zanzibar and Mombasa, married into the most powerful families in the Comoros from the seventeenth century and into some royal matrilineages in Ngazidja since the end of the eighteenth century (Martin Reference Martin1974: 382–3; Le Guennec-Coppens Reference Le Guennec-Coppens1989: 188).
Through endogamous marriages, this elite reproduced in a bilinear manner, maintaining its status through both matrilineage (hinya) and Arab and sharif patrilineage (qabila). Being a sharif was not a requirement in order to reign in Ngazidja kingdoms (Damir et al. Reference Damir, Boulinier and Ottino1985), but it brought moral distinction and the political and financial support of patrilateral kinship networks. In poorer families, having a sharif father can result in the reclassification of offspring and guarantees a religious education through access to the paternal Hadrami network.Footnote 12
The sharifs of Ngazidja, along with the mufti, ulama, qadis and other Islamic scholars, are also members of matrilineages and possibly the age system, and they follow the matri-uxorilocal residence rule. The behaviour of such figures with regard to conflicting lineage logics has not yet been studied sufficiently. One must, of course, distinguish between houses with a name and reputation, and those of humbler families where the issue of custom is less significant, and where there is more individual choice, via the paternal network. Social and religious networks are based on father–son and master–disciple ties, and the latter often becomes a father-in-law–son-in-law relationship, with both living in the same house. It is the uncle–nephew relationship, however, that is at the heart of the transmission of status and responsibilities in a matrilineal and matrilocal structure (this also can become a father-in-law–son-in-law tie). The endogamy of marriage in the city and in kinship networks leads us to assume that these patrilineal, matrilineal and religious logics are easily superimposed. This is especially the case because, as a result of such endogamy, paternal and maternal ancestries are often merged, and individuals may consequently find themselves related through several different ties.Footnote 13
New Islamic reforms and Western norms
The Comoros are exposed to various contemporary Islamic reformist movements as well as to Western norms of gender relations, both of which interact with the orientation towards women engendered by matrilineal institutions.
New Muslim reforms in the Comoros
Most styles of Islamic veiling can be observed in Ngazidja. One sometimes comes across fully veiled and gloved women, and students coming back from Sudan or Tanzania may continue to wear stricter Islamic outfits. The black clothing of girls educated in Ngazidja Islamic schools funded by Islamic movements is becoming widespread, with Muslim veils and long, buttoned coats contrasting with the traditional colourful, draped robes.
With regard to gender relations, the norms of contemporary Islamic missions oppose Western norms, which also influence society, but they also offer avenues to contest the social hierarchy or to gain higher status (Ahmed Reference Ahmed and Gomez-Perez2005). Following independence, Ali Soilihi's brief Marxist regime (1975–78) attempted to eradicate ‘superstitions’ and modernize Qur'anic schools. This regime was followed by that of President Ahmad ʿAbdallah (1978–89), who declared Islam the state religion (and Arabic the second official language) and created the position of Grand Mufti. His aim was to suppress secular political opposition and to add the aid of Muslim countries to that of Westerners. Under successive political regimes, young Comorians received scholarships to study in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Syria and Iran. Upon their return, those who preached reformist interpretations of Islam found themselves banned from the mosques’ minbars and their kin banished from all ãda activities. Some engaged in daʿwa (the call to Islam) in the streets, and others in the madrasa (modern Islamic schools) that were opened with the help of the Muslim World League or Saudi Arabia's Dar al-Ifta’; in the latter, it is compulsory to wear the hijab (veil). The Africa Muslim Agency of Kuwait opened a centre in Ngazidja with a huge mosque accommodating 1,000 worshippers, a Franco-Arabic school, an orphanage and a dispensary. Before its dissolution in 2004, the al-Haramayn Islamic Foundation built a school complex twice as large, run by a Comorian who had trained in Medina, as well as the theology building in Comoros’ new university (Ahmed Reference Ahmed2009). An offer to study at one of the Islamic colleges built by the Muslim World League is not insignificant for Ngazidja families, and the strictness of the dress code imposed on women reassures parents about the education girls receive there. A principal preoccupation of parents is that their daughters remain virgins until they are married.
The adoption of Islamic reformist ideas, including Salafism, by young people as an expression of revolt against social inequalities and parental authority can be compared with their parents’ adhesion to Marxist movements in the 1970s. Sons of elite families who have migrated to France manifest their refusal of the endogamous marriage model and customary exchanges by quickly marrying young girls of humble origins in conservative rites (no one can see the bride, whereas in Ngazidja rituals she is celebrated by other women).
The way in which people refer to matrilineal ideology even in an Islamic context is illustrated by this anecdote. A ceremony held in the Comoros’ presidential palace in 2011 to inaugurate projects funded by Qatar gave rise to the group wedding celebrations of around fifty Comorian nationals; these were young people with low incomes who thus received help to set up homes. This was unprecedented in Comoros, where weddings are a central event for individuals and families. A prominent man from Ndzwani Island, a sharif, officially rejoiced and added the equivocal comment: ‘This is a practice in accordance with Islam. Last year, I myself organized the group wedding celebration of my two nieces in Mutsamudu.’ This declaration, which perhaps was meant to reassure his compatriots, could not have been more ‘matrilineal’ (although he is also a member of a patrilineage of Hadrami origin). In addressing the Qataris, it could mean ‘We, too, are Muslims, and act as such for our wedding celebrations in our own way’, since it underlined the maternal uncle's responsibility.Footnote 14 Wisely, the Emdad-e-Emâm Khomeyni Comity, an Iranian Shi'i charitable organization active in Comoros, has adapted to the matrilocal/uxorilocal rule of residence, and since 2008 has offered to construct houses for orphan girls ready to be married.
Migration, the ‘invention’ of the conjugal couple and women's autonomy
Since the end of the nineteenth century, well-established migratory flows from Ngazidja have been directed successively to Zanzibar, Madagascar and France, as well as to the French islands of La Réunion and Mayotte. Comorian migrants include both workers and French-educated elites. Dynamic communities encourage young people to migrate to France, from where they help their families pay for great marriages and send money for public facilities. Families or communities with few migrant members are thus considered to have a low social position (Walker Reference Walker2012a; Reference Walker and Charsley2012b).
While in the Comoros, most married women live among their maternal kin; when they migrate, however, they are abruptly isolated from their relatives and female groups, and face a new, everyday confrontation with their husbands that reveals the asymmetry of conjugal relations. Usually, the woman will first seek financial autonomy, and then a new domestic and emotional balance. In France, she may access welfare payments as ‘a single woman with children’ (since her Islamic marriage is rarely registered) which provide her with important financial autonomy. However, the difficulty lies in gaining respect by marrying and giving birth to children in a legal (religious) context while escaping conjugal domination. Some qualified, wage-earning, middle-aged women have resolved the question of morals and autonomy by remarrying a man still living in Comoros, which enables them to work and bring up their children undisturbed.
Other migrating women regain control of their lives by practising a rigorous form of Islam. In this way, they resist a husband who claims to be their sole master. Islamic behaviour also provides a moral framework with which to face the dangerous freedom offered by the new environment in France (Blanchy Reference Blanchy1998). Generally, Comorian women's participation in prayers and in teaching Islam to the migrant community's children lends them recognition and social standing. One migrant woman used the religious knowledge she had acquired in an Islamist group in France to struggle against customary expenses on returning to Ngazidja for holidays. She could now argue with the village's accomplished men, stalwarts of these customs, citing Qur'anic texts whose legitimacy they could not object to, even if they ignored the woman's arguments. (Islam is dominated by male clerics and scholars; women are generally limited to the role of minor teachers, with some making careers for themselves in spirit possession cults.)
Migrant spouses may find themselves competing to help their respective families, for both everyday expenses and ãda contributions. Ngazidja cities are represented in France by their organizations. During madjlis – men's meetings that are simultaneously religious, musical and economic – considerable sums of money are regularly raised by each city for development projects. However, women's financial participation is so significant that men have had to accept their presence in these madjlis in France. Women, therefore, have entered into competition with men in both religious and economic fields, and men must now acknowledge and accept a certain sharing of power (Blanchy Reference Blanchy, Rajaonah and Bois2011).
Many men use their migration income to organize a great marriage with their current wife if she is from the same city and has never been married before. If she is not eligible for a great marriage, she may participate as the mother of his children, or she may prefer to be repudiated. Migrants’ demands for ãda na mila laws to be adapted are sometimes accepted as long as they contribute a large amount of money and will rarely sit in the assembly of their mdji in Ngazidja. And a migrant's late great marriage suggests that a young girl is being married to an old man by her parents, who seize the opportunity for advantageous ceremonial exchanges – but this is a situation that often the bride cannot bear for very long.
One aspect of the question already raised – how the matrifocality and Islam that form the basis of the Comorian ethos confront other conceptions of the individual, the family and social action in a Western environment – is illustrated by the case of Mayotte Island, where Ngazidja migrants are numerous. While Comoros gained its independence in 1975, Mayotte remained French; in 2011, it became a département with full legislative assimilation. The rapid rise in living standards, education and public and private facilities led to the abandonment of some local celebrations. The widespread disappearance of the age and exchange system was observed in the 1980s (Lambek Reference Lambek1990), but celebrating the ‘entry into the house’ has recently taken on an unprecedented magnitude, doubtless under Ngazidja influence. When the groom goes to his wife's house, he is surrounded by kin and friends of the same age whose numbers vary from two to twelve, and he is accompanied by a long procession of men. Kaswida (Ar. qasida, poems mainly from the Sufi repertoire) are sung by a choir from the Qur'anic school specializing in mulidi (or mawlidi – religious narratives of the birth of the Prophet). The value of women is expressed through two complementary but contrasting celebrations: the dance of the mbiyu, where women confront each other in a friendly dual, flaunting their expertise in sexual (conjugal) matters by gyrating their hips with virtuosity; and the debaa festivals, where they sing kaswida while dancing, but moving only their heads and arms. Here, Islam and matrilocal residence are both asserted as the foundations of Mahoran social values in response to assimilation into French law and Western ideas.
Conclusion
After describing the matrilineal and matrilocal framework of the ãda na mila in Ngazidja and underlining the extent to which matriliny is linked to the male age system and political assembly, I have raised the issue of male authority, which is central in both matrilineal and Islamic social organizations. I have shown that the circulation of men between allied matrilineages enables some of them to play a full political role at the city level in the houses of both their sister and their wife. This is possible only through solidarity and cooperation between the elder brother and sister, and their alliance with the brother-in-law. In this context, domestic authority is distributed between the husband and brother, with neither being dominant. The ceremonial exchanges of a specific marriage regime, the great marriage, enable the sister and brother to reproduce the matrilineal house that they represent, at the cost of the social career of their younger siblings, who are disadvantaged but freer to lead their own lives through simple conjugal unions. Matrilineal kinship relations are definitely stronger than conjugal ones, and in this regard matriliny accords well with the ease with which Islamic marriage can be dissolved. Power and violence exerted in familial relations are as much between elder and younger siblings as between husbands and wives.
I have addressed the place of Islamic institutions and ideology in Ngazidja, and how this has opened the way to conflicting, alternating or complementary moral choices and behaviour. Different reformist movements have repeatedly challenged social inequality and the great expense of ãda while offering a significant amount of support for education. Young people, whether or not they are directly concerned by great marriage, oppose their families when they are attracted to these social justice messages, especially in places of migration such as France.
Although migration to France is often a group strategy to enhance ãda activities in Ngazidja, it confronts husbands and wives with another model of conjugal and familial relations. Changes in Comorian family law under the influence of international programmes also try to promote conjugal ties and the nuclear family. In the case of divorce, there is now a focus on the mother and children, which is favoured by social assistance in France. However, this ‘matrifocality’ cannot erase the social and moral value of (Islamic) marriage, nor prevent the engagement of individuals in the matrilineage group action of great marriages.
Acknowledgements
This article was first presented in the workshop ‘Beyond the “patriarchal family”: forms of uxorilocality/matrilocality and matrifocality in Islamic societies past and present’, organized by Patrick Franke and Laila Prager at the University of Bamberg in 2011. I thank them and the anonymous readers of Africa for their suggestions to improve this article. Fieldwork was mainly conducted during twelve months between 1995 and 2007. Research was supported by the Laboratoire d'Ethnologie et de Sociologie Comparative, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France. Thanks are also due to the Comorian Centre National de Documentation et de Recherche Scientifique for ongoing support.
