Abstract
Official statistics in Botswana suggest very high numbers of extramarital births and female-headed households. One element of family policy in Botswana is a statute allowing women to claim maintenance payments from the biological fathers of their extramarital children. Formal interviews and informal conversations with women and men in a village in Botswana indicate that women do not make use of the maintenance law for a variety of reasons. Among these is that a continuing tie to the biological father of the child would interferen with the traditional mechanisms by which that child is supported and socially positioned and with the woman's own prospects for courtship and eventual marriage to the biological father or another man. Family policies should fit within, rather than being imposed upon, the cultural framework of the people they are trying to help.
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The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding and support for the research reported on in this article. Funding for fieldwork was provided to Nicholas Townsend by an NICHD postdoctoral fellowship (T32 HD07275-08) and by grants from the Andrew Mellon Foundation administered through the Department of Demography at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Population Studies and Training Center, Brown University. Funding for fieldwork was provided to Anita Garey by the Andrew Mellon Foundation administered by the Population Studies and Training Center, Brown University. Funding for analysis and writing was provided to Nicholas Townsend by a Mellon Foundation research fellowship from Brown University and to Anita Garey by a Population Council postdoctoral fellowship. Both authors thank the Population Studies and Training Center at Brown University for the material and moral support they received while in residence.
Her research, both in the United States and in Botswana, focuses on the interaction of cultural meanings and social structures in the experience of mothers. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
His research interests include the connections of men to children and the structure of domestic groups in Southern Africa and the United States. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
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Garey, A.I., Townsend, N.W. Kinship, courtship, and child maintenance law in Botswana. J Fam Econ Iss 17, 189–203 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02267046
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02267046