Historical patterns

With over 100 tribal groups, Tanzania is ethnically endowed with a wide spectrum of marriage practices associated with different descent group structures. Unilineal descent dominates mainland Tanzania. Over the 20th century, as population densities and the cash economy intensified, patrilineal practices have gradually and unobtrusively encroached on matrilineality (Moser Reference Moser, Parkin and Nyamwaya1987). Meanwhile, more overtly, conversion to Christian and Islamic beliefs that enshrine patriarchal principles took hold. Certainly, the tribes most represented in our surveys, the Sukuma, Nyaramba, Nyaturu, Nyakyusa, Safwa and Nyamwezi are patrilineal.

Cattle-keeping patrilineal groups, notably the Nyamwezi, Sukuma and Kuria, are well-known for their demanding bridewealth systems (Abrahams Reference Abrahams1967; Fleisher Reference Fleisher1999; Mhando Reference Mhando2011). Expensive bridewealth thresholds enforced by male elders have traditionally kept young men's marriage prospects at bay for a considerable time after their entry into adulthood. Elaborate rites of passage and some form of bridewealth structure the majority of lineage-based tribal groups. Bridewealth has functioned as a motive force and pivot of local economies.

Bridewealth has had a two-fold regulatory role: functioning as a community maxim that: (1) inculcated female subservience and respect towards men, and (2) provided a socially agreed contract of exchange that bound women in marriage (Lovett Reference Lovett1996). Bridewealth payments hinted at the status hierarchy of power within the community. The prospective bride's worth was calculated on the basis of her behavioural demeanour as a dutiful wife, hard worker and above all fertile childbearer. Such qualities were believed to contribute to the wealth and status of her husband.

It was possible for men to arrange engagement to an unborn child, with payment of a bridewealth deposit at birth, if it was a girl. Girls were expected to be married soon after puberty. This was related to the heavy premium placed on the girl's virginity, which could be checked by female elders on her wedding day (Wilson Reference Wilson1952). Unmarried women were frowned upon and deemed too disruptive to the moral order of the tribal community. Girls and women had no autonomy in determining when and whom they married. This was a decision of the elders of the prospective bride and groom's families. Once married, women were expected to be dutiful to their husbands and were sanctioned by both their husband's and their own natal families to remain married. Divorce necessitated the return of bridewealth property by the woman's natal homestead to the husband's family. The amount returned could be reduced upon consideration of how many children had been borne, the duration of the marriage and the reasons for divorce. Such dealings brought shame and regret, leading to pressure on the woman to stay married. The Native Courts presided over by male elders endeavoured to uphold the stability and irreversibility of marriage.

In patrilineal groups, the paternity of children has generally been an issue vis-à-vis bridewealth payments. Nyakyusa brides were subjected to virginity tests on their wedding day with compensation paid to the groom's family if the bride failed the test. Similarly, in cases of discovery of a wife's infidelity, her husband would seek compensation from the male transgressor. Nonetheless, in most tribal societies, secret sex between lovers, married or unmarried, was not only known to happen but tacitly condoned, as long as the affair was pursued discretely. This gave young men a welcome chance for sexual encounters, usually with a rendezvous outside the village in secluded agricultural fields, woods or elsewhere (Caplan Reference Caplan, Okely and Callaway1992, Reference Caplan, Creighton and Omari2001). Illicit local liaisons tended to be kept undercover and were not a source of moral condemnation if they were kept inconspicuous.

Meanwhile women who dared to leave their home areas and the protection of their lineage faced moral censure and were frequently labelled ‘prostitutes’ (malaya) by virtue of their independence from male lineage control (Mbilinyi Reference Mbilinyi1988; McCurdy Reference McCurdy, Hodgson and McCurdy2001). Such unattached women posed a threat to the social order constructed by rural male patriarchs, whose power rested on control of women and younger men. The spread of Christianity compounded the social disdain that the prostitutes experienced. Christianity's insistence on monogamous unions cast independent women as potential home wreckers.

Miners' time-off pastimes: drinking and flirting

Moving to the present, our artisanal mining survey sites are culturally set apart from surrounding rural villages, even though the two exist in close spatial proximity to one another.Footnote ⁵ Given the mobile and youthful demographic composition of the mining population, there is an absence of male elders for exerting moral pressure over sexual behaviour in the manner described above. The high turnover of migrants makes it impossible for everyone to be familiar with one another, let alone know each others' family backgrounds, which precludes community gossip from having the same moderating influence on individuals' sexual behaviour. Some older members of the settlement cannot resist trying to compensate for the lack of counselling by speaking their mind about younger people's courtship activities, but there is a distinct impression that the two generations, who in the case of the women break down into ‘older married women’ and ‘younger unmarried women’, are speaking past each other.

Meeting and mating with the opposite sex is pragmatically facilitated in miners' daily lives by the existence of bars that serve as fuelling stations for fulfilment of the basic needs of eating and drinking. Barmaids, mostly young women, nicknamed dogo dogo Footnote ⁶ (spring chicks) to signify how they represent successive waves of newly arrived young women, are employed or, more commonly, work for tips in these establishments. The most popular is humorously called ‘the Vatican’.

Barmaids generally work as casualised labour. Very few receive a fixed salary or adhere to a work schedule. Instead upon their arrival in the settlement most approach the bar owners asking for the chance to work.

The barmaids have various ploys for making money.

The boundaries between romantic dating, propositioning and sexual intimidation are continually blurred. Primarily in search of boyfriends, the girls expect to be treated with food, drinks and gifts from the men. Barmaids may ask for money for having sexual intercourse, but there is nothing fixed about such payments when they happen. The same amount of money may cover a whole night together. Negotiating signals on both sides tend to be ambiguous and contestable, but in areas where competition over the ‘best’ girls is high and cash is flowing, payments may occasionally be as high as several hundred dollars.

Arrangements to meet after the girl's shift require logistical manoeuvring since the bars are not brothels. In fact some bar owners have explicit rules banning men from the girls' rooms. Usually the men have places in mind where they can take or later meet with their selected sex partner.

Most young newcomers start their working lives as barmaids but those intent on getting beyond their goodtime-girl status consciously set boundaries on how they earn their money and steer their lives.

The girls' ‘gold rush’ tends to be short-lived and yields disappointing results. Many come from troubled backgrounds of marital instability, family domestic abuse, dissension, violence or death, seeking personal autonomy and better life chances.Footnote ⁷ They are responding to perceived opportunities while tending to ignore the obvious threat of HIV/AIDS. The reported HIV+ prevalence rate was 22% in 2007.Footnote ⁸ Condom usage is not widespread. Men feel that it impinges on their sexual pleasure. Knowing they are running big risks and may be HIV positive, most people do not like to think about, let alone talk about, the possibility of HIV infection.

Residents in the mining settlements identify, resent and rely on the presence of these continuing influxes of young girls. Many of the women came to the settlement through this channel. Now they are married and feel insecure about the presence of the newcomers vis-à-vis their menfolk. On the other hand, the girls are the axis of the catering and service trade. Their labour is needed and is profitable. This nonetheless does not stop many older members of the population complaining about the girls' perceived lack of morality.

Good time girls (dogo dogo)

Aged in their early teens through to mid 20s, many if not most girls entering as migrants find their way into an arena of sexual conquest that can lead to misadventure. One-night stands abound. When the mines are producing gold, the men are in high spirits celebrating their success or at least optimism of success with the girls. The young women heavily rely on the free food, drinks and gifts of fashionable clothing. There is a continually high turnover. During the rainy season, when there is little gold digging many migrate elsewhere due to the seasonal lull in the livelihood prospects, then there are those who leave because of illness from the excesses of alcohol, an erratic diet and exposure to STDs, conflictual interpersonal relations or abandonment by their newfound boyfriends. While there is novelty, fun and adventure during the mining seasons, the young women nonetheless face many hazards. It is from these successive cohorts that miners find cohabiting partners. Newly formed couples may manage to stay together, get married and in rare cases establish longstanding conjugal relations. In this way, some newcomers eventually become the settlement's hard-working, respected matrons who bemoan the passions and pathos of their successors. The following records local observations and direct experiences of the ‘good-time girls’ of the present day.

Cohabiting girlfriend-wives (hawara)

Arising from discovered compatibilities, be they social or sexual, cohabiting relationships tend to be motivated by social and economic convenience on the part of either partner or both. Sharing accommodation can save money and affords people many of the comforts of home, day-to-day cooperative interaction and sex. Girls are especially eager to find a man to live with, related to their need for a sense of both material security and physical protection given the ‘rough life’ of the mining settlement.Footnote ¹⁰ Genuine affection brings many of these couples together. Others' cohabitation may be prompted by the birth of a child, which the miner acknowledges as his. Their decision to live together is sometimes marked by an impromptu gathering of friends and well-wishers. But that is rare.

Most couples begin their cohabitation through happenstance barely cognisant of a joint social existence let alone considering how long they may live together. The passage of time may strengthen compatibility and interdependence of the couple. After about three to six months of being together the couple are seen to have withstood the test of time and are generally considered ‘married’ in hawara relationships that infer permanence and sexual faithfulness of the women towards her male partner (Talle Reference Talle, Abram and Waldren1998). However, the actual duration of the couple living together is a matter of months not years. When one or the other partner vacates the shared premises with all of his or her material possessions, most are walking away from each other with total finality, tantamount to a clean-break divorce minus the need for legal proceedings.

Polygamous marriages

Despite the many cultural precedents for polygamy in Tanzania, traditional polygamy and polygamous practices in mining localities evince some fundamental differences. In the latter, almost everyone is a migrant with lack of knowledge of their spouse's family background. Not infrequently, women marry and only discover later that their husbands are polygamist. Furthermore, the high mobility of miners ordains that many have wives in distant places to which they remit considerable sums of money. Various breaches of trust and family welfare can arise.

Monogamous marriages-cum-business partnerships

Despite the highly mobile and sexualised environment in which residents of the mining settlements live, which militates for short-term, casualised sexual relations, there were seven out of the 30 interviewed women who had marriages that endured for over 8 years, three for over 20 years. All except two were the interviewed women's first and only marriages. Even in the two cases involving second husbands, the marriages were of an enduring nature. In one case it was apparent that the marriage was lodged on a firm religious belief in the sanctity of marriage. But the others were couples that operated with a joint economic trajectory of pooled income and property as a single welfare unit. The husbands' and wives' productive activities were characterised by a collaborative or complementary division of labour, a high incidence of joint investment and special arrangements for sending their children to good schools outside of the mine settlement. Economic trust underlined the monogamous marriages as illustrated in the following quotes.

The extreme in which men and women have pooled income and assets cited above tends to be most salient amongst the higher echelons. Other husbands and wives are likely to be operating with separate accounts related to different income streams, but this is a somewhat covert, negotiable arena in Tanzania which contrasts with the literature on pooled and non-pooled income emanating from West Africa where non-pooled income of wives is more overtly delineated and consensually legitimised (Whitehead Reference Whitehead, Young, Wolkowitz and McCullagh1981).

Single, independent women

In contrast to the above monogamous marriages where the women expressed satisfaction and happiness with their marriages, there was a very strong representation of women who were single out of necessity or choice with some deliberately avoiding close interdependent relationships with men. In Tanzania, historically it was unthinkable for a woman not to marry. The belief was that women always had to be protected by their fathers (or maternal uncles in the case of matrilineality) as children, by their husbands once married and by their sons if widowed. Traditionally, women gained social status from marriage and having children (Bryceson Reference Bryceson, Creighton and Omari1995). However, those who now choose to live alone, either through bitter experiences endured during previous marriages or fear of HIV/AIDS are relatively numerous. Some young unmarried women retain their autonomy from men with the intention of avoiding AIDS and/or building an independent economic base for themselves. Most independent women had been married or in relationships with boyfriends but had been left with children that they were raising largely on their own as explained in the following case studies.

Anchor wives in home areas

Having studied male–female relationships within the mining settlements, we were not in a position to interview an important wifestyle category, namely the ‘anchor wife’, living in a geographically distanced place, who receives visits and remittances from a mining husband or long-term lover. Most miners' anchor wives are situated in their home areas. They are usually first wives of the miners who married following traditional tribal rites of their home communities with bridewealth payments. These marriages do not always endure as miners migrate from one mine site to the next, but of those that do, the man's social identity, emotional connections and economic property tend to be closely linked to his anchor wife. The anchor wife's continuing residence in the home area often serves to safeguard his claim to ancestral homeland and other inheritance property. Sukuma men, originating from distant areas near Lake Victoria, were the most numerous in our miners' survey, and were often polygamous with anchor wives resident in their home areas. The following commentary is from a woman observing her Sukuma husband's continuing links with his anchor wife.