Wednesday 20th November 2024

On a very cold frosty night Professor of African History Dr Kate Skinner gave us a fascinating lecture on the treatment of widows in postcolonial Ghana.  She began by putting the hundreds of millions of widows worldwide into context.  Their image as an invisible group often increased by war and conflict was challenged by the Ghanian experience.  

Ghana, formerly the British Colony of Gold Coast from 1874-1957 has not had the wars or interstate conflict of its neighbours.  Today the age of marriage is increasing due to female education, narrowing the age gap between husbands and wives, while the size of families remains twice that of Europe.  A key difference from the image of widows as invisible victims was the portrayal of Ghanian widows in popular culture.  Among Ghana’s younger population older widows were often depicted as witches and driven out of villages but due to the country’s tradition of polygyny there were also young widows with small children.  As a result, there were often complex inheritance disputes when husbands died.  The British had attempted to resolve this by creating an Ordinance Marriage in 1884 but most Ghanaians had stuck to their polygyny traditions.  After chiefs and elders District Commissioners could be appealed to settle inheritance disputes despite their lack of legal qualifications.  Over time rich Ghanaians sent their sons to London to study for the bar. These returned to run Ghana’s postcolonial legal system.

Widows, including first wives were never entitled to their husband’s estate unless he left a will and they and their children were only entitled to a share of the estate with most passing back to the husband’s family.  Professor Skinner’s research of legal cases produced snapshots over time of how wealth was accumulated by men and women.  She was particularly looking at widows’ ‘rage’ rather than the invisible victim notion of widowhood. 

Using two cases where men had died intestate and their widows had taken on their in-laws in the courts she showed how Ghanian widows had shown their power and persistence. In one case the hard work of the widow in running three cocoa farms (linked to the UK chocolate industry) gave her a significant state in the inheritance. One of these cases had led to the 1965 Children’s Maintenance Act (Act 297). 

The questions from our audience also looked at the position of younger widows including child brides who still had little provision or protection compared with the first wife. The lecture raised some links to the situation of women and their families in other cultures and how many people in the audience had made a will themselves.  A lively and very relevant lecture ended at 8.50pm.