The rebellious girl who wants the perfect man: role assignments in folktales of the bulsa in Northern Ghana

Abstract

Girls are social misfits in patrilineal and virilocal societies. (Or: Are patrilineal societies not fit to meet the emotional needs of nubile girls?) They cause problems for their parents as well as for their husbands because their place in patrilineal societies shifts between their ‘family of orientation’ and their ‘family of procreation. Boys, in contrast to girls, have their place fixed in their patrilineage as well as in their father’s house and local clan section from birth until death, and even thereafter as ancestors2 .