generally submit to the authority of his
wife's brothers, with respect to his -wife,
his children, and her land. Not
uncommonly, therefore, husbands
experience insecurity oftenure and divorce
rates might be high. On divorce, or on the
death of his wife, a man returns to his
mother's village and his former wife, or
her descendants, retains all the usufruct
rights to the lands that formerly they
cultivated jointly.
Many traditional subsistence
communities are bound by close
interpersonal relationshipsviainstitutions
for sharing, which demonstrate that all
people in a community are linked together
in one way or another, and that everybody
has access rights to a common property
resource, as well as rights to demand a
share in the product of resources to which
specific households hold exclusive rights.
Commonly, subsistence activities are not
viewed as a business undertaking, rather
as operations on which depends the welfare
ofall members ofa community. Widespread
are sets of related concepts which stress
that more fundamental than increasing
profits, spreading risks and gaining
assistance, is the individual's right to
survive; that nobody should go hungry
and that everybody should share in the
results of an economic activity, however
meagre they might be. Such obligations
have an important bearing on the decision
to adopt or not innovations leading to
increased productivity, as a concomitant
increase is the requirement to share.
In many such societies, people who
ignore or neglect their duties toward kin
are criticized and, finally, deserted by them,
thereby depriving themselves of social and
economic security in time of need (e.g.,
Mitchell 1951 ). In traditional communities
in parts of Southern MalaBi, for example,
a person who ignores his kinship
obligations to such an extent that he is
deserted by his relatives is considered to
be the target of sorcery by them. Further,
he himself was likely to be suspected of
being a sorcerer (Mitchell 1951).
It has been widely claimed that the
insecurity ofmale tenure under matrilineal
systems of social organization is a common
disincentive to make long-term investment
and improvement in a land unit, the
usufruct right of which belongs to a wife
(e-g., Lamport-Stokes 1970). This varies
greatly, however, and depends in large
part on the personality characteristics of
the individual male.
Land scarcity coupled with the
disincentives inherent in the traditional
social structure are an increasing cause of
divergence from cultural norms in any
matrilineal society. Menlivinguxorilocally
frequently seek to establish their own farms
and particularly those for cash crops or
other long-term investments.
As a consequence of such highly
complex interaction of personal usufruct
rights to land, especially in areas of
matrilineal societies and high population
density, either those obtained through
village membership or those acquired
individually, patterns ofcultivation rights
in many developing countries are
extremely complicated. It is almost
meaningless to attempt to resolve into a
checklist of simple, generalizable
principles, particularly since its inherent
complexity is now being additionally
ramified by population growth and
resultant pressures on land and land
fragmentation, and as a result ofincreasing
divergences from nominally prescribed
cultural forms attributable to general
"modernization".Access to Resources
In Zomba District of Southern MalaGi,
76% of fish farming households have a
tahl land holding of more than 2 ha, and
only 16 have 1.0 ha or less (Banda 1989).
Most fishfarmers thereforehave relatively
large land holdings. Those with less than
0.8 ha who practice fish farming usually