Combining Ethnographic and Survey Methods: A Study of the Nuptiality Patterns of the Shona of Zimbabwe

INTRODUCTIONRecently, awareness has been increasing among scholars of African societies of the relative importance of cultural differences in social behavior, especially in the area of marriage and the family. This sensitivity to cultural variation has resulted in some skepticism about data generated through standardized questionnaires used in large-scale demographic surveys, such as the World Fertility Surveys and the Demographic and Health Surveys. Consequently, some researchers have shifted their attention towarrd small-scale studies and alternative methods of data collection, such as participant observation, semi-structured probing interviews, and focus group interviews (see Caldwell, 1985; Caldwell et al., 1988). Qualitative data obtained by applying traditional ethnographic methods can enhance our understanding of social processes, but these data also can be used to improve the formulation of survey questionnaires. Since large-scale surveys have been criticized because they tend to rely on a very limited number of standardized questions, it should be possible to avoid these deficiencies by using ethnographic information to develop more sophisticated and more detailed questionnaires. In this paper, I use data from an event-history survey of the union formation process among the Shona-speaking peoples of Zimbabwe to demonstrate how survey research methods and ethnographic methods can complement one another.Among the Shona-speaking peoples, as elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, traditional marriage involves the negotiation and payment of bridewealth. Shona bridewealth payments consist of several parts, and each type of payment transfers specific rights to the prospective groom, including sexual rights in the bride, the right to cohabit with her, and rights to the offspring of the union (Bourdillon, 1987: 41-43, 315; Gelfand, 1965: 82-86; May, 1983: 25). In societies that have a bridewealth system, the family groups have a financial interest in marriages. Consequently, there will often be a tendency to value premarital virginity and to control the marriage patterns of women (Obbo, 1980: 51). Families may use arranged marriages for girls, and restrictions on contacts between unmarried persons of the opposite sex to enforce these goals.In many African societies, such traditional marriage customs are gradually being abandoned in favor of more informal types of unions, especially in urban areas and among the better educated. This decline in formal marriages has been attributed to an erosion of the power of the lineage and to changes in women's status that stem from socioeconomic development. Young people frequently want to be allowed to choose their own partner, and to avoid strict parental control they resort to elopements, which may or may not be followed by a regular marriage (Goody, 1976: 14-17). Likewise, women who are dissatisfied with the traditional subordination of wives to their husbands may avoid formal bridewealth marriages, at least temporarily (Bledsoe, 1980, 1990; Little, 1973: 38; MacGaffey, 1988; Obbo, 1980; Roberts, 1988; Stichter and Parpart, 1988). Since avoiding formal marriage is possible only for those women who are economically independent, informal unions tend to be more common among better educated and urban women. However, since marriage remains an important indicator of female status, most women who enter an informal union do marry eventually, perhaps after they have acquired some amount of independent wealth or have completed their education (Little, 1973: 29; Obbo, 1980: 106).Among the Shona, young couples also re trying to avoid the rigidities of the traditional marriage system. Ethnographic studies indicate that young couples increasingly oppose the payment of bridewealth, and that several types of unions exist which deviate from the normative bridewealth marriage (Bourdillon, 1987; Gelfand, 1964, 1984; May, 1983). These studies further suggest that it is becoming increasingly common for young couples to violate the traditional ban on premarital sexual intercourse. …