The disappearing state VI

Over the years marriage came to signify the capacity for long term support of wife and family. Few Africans could afford this. Status was increasingly given to the act of marriage itself. This support of wife and family meant a steady job, buying a house and being relatively free of debts and of “other family” responsibilities. Marriage was not as closely linked to child-bearing as it was taken to be in European marriages. It was, however, closely linked to the status of children: when their children achieved particular success and where there was a stable “common law” marriage, the parents married. With this the family signalled that it had entered the Middle Class and had adopted Middle Class morality. Stable employment was overwhelmingly teaching. What was known as the “pupil teacher” required no financial outlay and a minimum of academic knowledge. It did require ambition, patience, and proof of good character. Principals, particularly at primary schools which were owned and administered by religious authorities, were expected to combine church activities with their teaching work. This was also true of Presbyterian teachers. These, largely Indian, followed the same general rule for entry into the Middle Class as did Creoles.

Collapse

With the victory of the PNM and the payment by the Government of teachers’ salaries, teachers became Civil Servants. This took place in spite of the opposition of some Church authorities to the Government’s ending of separate school entrance examinations and therefore separate and religious pupil selection.

I have deliberately used the word “some”. In spite of popular belief, there were differing opinions in all the religious authorities. There were also fears in some sections of the population that former race and class as major methods of selection were intended by those who argued for separate school entrance examinations. The result of this conflict and of the new teacher Civil Service status, was the dilution of religious constraints over teachers. In some cases constraints virtually collapsed. This was so where school authorities were uncertain of the goals of education or where the school was not inserted into a community. Many Indian schools were at an advantage. With the growth of suburbs, the rise of paying Prep Schools serving the Middle Class and the decline of both the inner city and the countryside, the interlocking of community, household and school became non-existent. Poor areas equalled poor schools. The political, ethnic and religious conflict with its and all the competition in the wider society, became imbedded in education. If we had hoped that education would bind us as citizens of a Republic, we were wrong.

The Extended Family

Female teachers, like women in the health and in the Public Service, were not allowed to continue working once they became pregnant. This applied to both single and married women. This only ended with the first PNM government. This ban on women working if pregnant was part of that cluster of “sex regulations” which marked the Victorian period. In the case of Trinidad and Tobago this ban increased the number of unmarried middle class women. It did not affect working class women. These were generally outside of the Public Service. Women were not expected to set up their own household if they were single. They therefore formed the backbone of one form of what was called the extended family. They were also an important source of income for the rest of the family. This income or housework, was exchanged for security within the household during illness and old age. To unmarried sister and sometimes brothers, was added quasi-kin. These were close friends of the family. The collapse of this extended family was largely due to changes in the social and economic situation of women.

The Joint Family

Indians, where they could, established the joint family. This ideally consisted of mother, father, adult sons and their wives in semi-autonomous units but ultimately under the control of father and under the same roof. We only have to read VS Naipaul’s biography to realise that this model joint family does not always exist. Women could control the joint family rather than men, where women controlled finance. Arranged marriages are in steady decline with social mobility and as Indian women enter the professions.

Marion O’Callaghan

Social Anthropologist,

formerly Director of Social Science Programmes, UNESCO