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Paper short abstract:

The high fertility rate in Eastern Uganda, combined with increasing frailty of partnerships and paternal filiation, means that single mothers are concerned about the future relations of children to their fathers. While children 'belong' to their father and his clan, paternal care is often minimal.

Paper long abstract:

In the patrilineal, virilocal societies of eastern Uganda, the convention is that children ‘belong’ to their fathers. Sons should inherit land from them, and daughters should marry and cultivate their husbands’ land. Continuing high birth rates, land shortage and changes in patterns of partnership have complicated this pattern. The decline of marriage has meant that more women are single mothers. Classic anthropological work on kinship in Africa concerned itself with descent and filiation. Mothers today confront the existential question of what filiation really means in practice. Many would like the fathers of their children to take responsibility, but poverty and changes in gender relations have made this a challenge. Women with children by different men find themselves in a situation Jane Guyer termed ‘polyandrous motherhood’—where a woman has, not concurrent husbands, but concurrent fathers of her children.

These issues are prominent in Butaleja District where I have been conducting fieldwork over five decades. Repeated household surveys in one village show radical falls in bridewealth and in polygyny. Ongoing participant observation and interviews reveal concerns over livelihood and the support of children—and the future relation of children to fathers. The total fertility rate in Uganda as a whole has fallen from 7.4 in 1988 to 5.4 in 2016, led by declines in urban areas. But it has remained high in some rural parts of the country including Butaleja District, a ‘fertility hotspot’, with a reported total fertility rate of 8.0. Family and filiation take on new forms in response.