Gender roles and family relations in early Haitian society
Preamble
Gender roles and family relationships in Haiti are rooted in the diverse cultural backgrounds of the population. Generally speaking, the two main cultural influences are African and French. At one extreme is the African heritage. Among the Afro-Haitians who occupy the three lowest classes of Haitian society, the middle class, the urban lower class, and the rural peasantry, the African cultural heritage remains very strong. This is particularly evident in the areas of marital relationships, defined gender roles before and after marriage, types of marriages, and the extended family system. At the other extreme are Franco-Haitians, or mulattoes, who have embraced the French heritage wholesale, and who occupy the upper-class elite of Haitian society.
rural haiti
Rural Haiti is where the vast majority of Haitians live and the majority of the people are Afro-Haitian. In these parts of Haiti, the twin influences of their African heritage and the people’s experience of slavery have combined to define their family and marital relationships and the roles of the two genders (male and female) in these relationships. The main economic activities in rural Haiti are centered on agriculture. The people, both men and women, are essentially farmers.
For couples who are married or in a marriage arrangement, their main economic and financial activities, which center around farming food crops, is a cooperative effort between a man and his wife. The rural culture of Haiti values the economic contribution of women to the farm; in which all income generated through agricultural production belongs to both husband and wife. Farm work is organized in such a way that the wife’s activities complement those of the husband. While the man does all the hard work in preparing the land for cultivation, clearing the bushes, tilling and hoeing; the wife does the complementary work of weeding, pruning, and harvesting.
As a follow-up to the harvest, the wife processes the product to sell it in the market.
Crops such as cassava tubers are processed into cassava flour and starch by the women before taking them to market for sale. The woman is solely responsible for marketing the harvest from her farm. Proceeds from sales are used to meet the needs of the entire family. For couples who have a ‘plasach’ or concubinage marriage arrangement, financial security arrangements are made for the woman. The husband, in addition to providing a house for the wife, who is likely to be a second wife, must also cultivate a plot of land for the wife’s farm.
Rural women, who are full-time market traders, often achieve economic independence. These women are not bound by tradition to share their income with their husbands. However, some help increase family income by voluntarily contributing income from their trade and other off-farm activities. Among peasants in rural Haiti, there are various types of marriage arrangements between men and women. You have the monogamous marriage between a man and a woman. Marriage could be contracted under the traditional system. In this arrangement, the man pays the bride price to the woman’s family.
Polygamy is still practiced in rural Haiti. The first wife is the only one generally recognized by the government as a legitimate wife, while other ‘plasach’ wives are considered concubines of the man. Due to the great love of Haitian parents for children, children are accepted, whether they are born in or out of wedlock. The extended family system or ‘Lakou’ is still very much alive and well in rural Haiti. Members of a ‘Lakou’ work cooperatively on each other’s farms and provide each other with financial support in times of need. It is worth noting that most of the traditional practices of rural Haiti are a faithful transfer from the original traditions of their African ancestors. Some of these traditional practices, such as polygamous marriages, cooperative farm labor, and couples living in extended family compounds, still exist today in rural African societies.
UrbanHaiti
The migration of Afro-Haitians from rural communities to urban centers has resulted in the modification of some of the traditional practices of their ancestors and the complete elimination of others. Among lower-class urban communities in Haiti today, the most common marriage arrangement remains the ‘plasaj,’ or concubinage. Due to the high cost of formal marriage ceremonies, couples coexist as husband and wife until they can financially legitimize their marriages in a Christian religious ceremony or in a court of competent jurisdiction. Husbands and wives from lower-class urban families share the cost of maintaining the home. The husbands have paid employment while the wives are engaged in petty trade or the operation of small restaurants and breweries. Lower-class urban husbands also help with heavy housework, such as collecting firewood for cooking, while the wives do the cooking, along with their other housework and childcare.
Among middle-class Haitians who live mainly in urban areas, formal monogamous marital relationships are the norm. Middle-class marriages generally take the form of church wedding ceremonies or legal exchange of vows in a court of competent jurisdiction. Husbands typically help their wives with childcare and other household chores, particularly when both husband and wife are in gainful employment. Since their arrival in Haiti in the second half of the 20th century, Protestant churches have encouraged legal unions between urban lower and middle-class couples, providing affordable church weddings for members of these churches.
Haiti’s upper-class elite, who are mostly mulattoes, have imitated the French way of doing things for hundreds of years. They live like the French, they speak the French language at home and in the workplace; and of course, they have adopted French marital customs and practices. Civil and religious marriages were the norm, and the “best” families could trace legally married ancestors back to the 19th century and beyond. Courtships between spinsters and eligible bachelors were usually arranged by the “best” families. Hence it was not uncommon for elite mulatto families to be interrelated, with cousins marrying each other. The husband would go out to work for someone else or the family business, leaving the wife in charge of the front of the house, surrounded by servants. With immigration from Europe and changing economic conditions in Haiti, things are changing for the upper-class elite as well. It is now quite common for elite wives to take paid employment, while husbands share running the household.