Relationships between them are not easy to observe, and the number of joint households on which we were able to collect evidence was small. Mothers and daughters. Women want sons, but this does not mean that they do not love daughters. Girls grow up with the women of the household, and learn their most important lessons from their mother, helping her in all the household tasks. This inimacy, greater than that between any other pair of different generations, is violently interrupted by the girl's marriage, which normally takes place about puberty or soon after.
Marriage is a time of acute grief to the bride's mother.
One woman, on the marriage of her third daughter, told us that she had been seriously ill after each wedding, so painful was the parting. After marriage, a girl still looks to her own mother for help, advice and comfort. If she is ill, everyone expects her to be sent home to be nursed by her own mother. If they marry into the sae household, or two very closely related households, or even if they are in the same village, they will normally maintain close co-operation throughout life. The most critical relationships among the women within the household are between the incoming strangers.