Identifier: throughugandatom00purv (find matches)
Title: Through Uganda to Mount Elgon
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Purvis, John Bremner
Subjects: Ethnology Missions
Publisher: London (etc.) : F. T. Unwin
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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ry much respected. They hold a muchhigher position in the country than was thecase only a few years ago in Uganda, andis to-day in Usoga and other countries inthe Lake district. The Masaba women donot rank with the goods and chattels, butreceive respect in youth and honour in old age. The spirit of independence has been mark-edly developed in the people, no doubt owingto the fact that the nation is not organisedunder one head, and the consequent necessityfor each person to look after himself orherself. A child will defend with its life itsown small property, perhaps a single fowl,and dare its father to use it for himself. Awife will deeply resent any claim of owner-ship over her made by her husband, yet willbe strictly loyal to hitai until he begins toneglect her claims and rights. It is sometimes necessary for the husbandto assert himself in a manner painful yetsalutary to his wife; but when the womanhas been in the right, and has taken stepsto defend herself, her methods are usually
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288 Maintaining Womens Rights 289 so drastic that an operation or funeral isnecessary to the husband. Such cases I have had brought to mynotice, and must confess that in one such Ifound it quite difficult to impress the ladywith the wrongness of sticking a knife intoher husbands back, within an inch of hisspine, for she was quite convinced that hedeserved it, and had an idea that I thoughtso too. She promised, however, not to do itagain, and gladly left her husband in my careuntil cured. The system of polygamy is not responsiblefor the amount of domestic trouble it isgenerally supposed to engender. Each wifehas her own house, the framework of whichis built by the man and his friends, whilstthe lady and her friends carefully mud thewalls and beat the floor. Outside this houseare one or two grain stores, where the ladystores up the last grain harvest as a safe-guard against a prolonged dry season whenthe banana supply gives out. Sometimes, however, a spirit of jealousycreeps in between

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