Clan, lignage et mariage en pays nzema: une reconsidération

The lexical and etymological analysis of the word abusua, as well as the analysis of the conceptual coincidence between cross-cousin marriage and the marriage with a subordinate, or enslaved woman (suanu agyal?), show the structural conditions of the Nzema society between matrilineality and patrifiliation. Moreover, the comparison among the Nzema, Asante, Fanti and Wassa kinship systems show that suanu agyal?, as a marriage with a subordinate, or enslaved woman, is a historical adaptation of the cross-cousin marriage, a more typical trait of an elementary kinship system. That means that matrilineality, and matrilineal descent groups (matriclans and matrilineages) are long duration phenomena, and that Wilks’ thesis on the recent origins of matriclans should be profoundly revised.