Exchange, Reproduction and Sex Subordination Among the Kikuyu of East Africa

Abstract

Social arrangements and the sexual division of labor among the Kikuyu are described. The different social results of foreign trade in slaves and in ivory, local trade for consumption and the circulation of goods for social integra tion are discussed. Trade, it is argued. should not be discussed abstractly, but only in terms of the specific goods involved. The relationship between the growth of the ivory trade, population growth, and the subordination of women is dis cussed. The rate of new household formation is argued to be the key to under standing population growth.