In the past, Ghanaian marriages were widely regarded as enduring unions. Separations were rare, and divorce was uncommon. Marriages were expected to last a lifetime, sustained not only by the couple but also by their extended families and lineages. Today, however, the situation has changed dramatically. Marital breakdowns are increasingly common, and divorce has become…
Ghanaian society traditionally values respect for the elderly. Older people are regarded as repositories of wisdom, custodians of tradition, and moral anchors of the family. Yet beneath this ideal lies a troubling reality: many elderly persons in Ghana experience neglect, abuse, and profound social vulnerability. Elderly neglect refers to the failure of family members, caregivers,…
Every year, thousands of children in Ghana suffer abuse at the hands of those entrusted with their care—parents, guardians, and relatives. Reports of battered, neglected, and traumatized children frequently appear in the Ghanaian mass media, often accompanied by disturbing images and heartbreaking details. In many cases, the abuse results in severe physical injuries; in others,…
For a long time, Ghanaians have embraced foreign ways and ideas that have not served them well and, in many cases, have undermined national development. For this reason, some Ghanaians are increasingly calling for cultural and linguistic self-determination as a necessary step if the nation is to move forward with confidence and purpose. They question…
When Two Elephants Fight, the Earth Underneath Suffers Marriage is ideally meant to be a source of companionship, love, and emotional security between husband and wife. Yet in Ghana, as in many societies across the world, the promise of marital bliss is too often shattered by domestic violence, particularly wife-beating. While both men and women…
Punishment is a central feature of every organized society, including Ghana. While rewards are designed to encourage conformity and socially approved behavior, punishment exists to negatively sanction deviant behavior. When individuals act in ways that align with societal norms, they are often rewarded through praise, status, social recognition, or material benefits. When they violate those…
Punishment is a central feature of every organized society. While rewards are designed to encourage conformity and socially approved behavior, punishment exists to negatively sanction deviant behavior. When individuals act in ways that align with societal norms, they are often rewarded through praise, status, or material benefits. When they violate those norms, society—or its authorized…
Cohabitation refers to an intimate arrangement in which a man and a woman live together in a shared residence without being formally married. While cohabitation has become increasingly common in many contemporary societies, it is generally frowned upon in Akan society and regarded as socially improper. Within the Akan marital system, there is a strong…
Polygamy refers to a marital arrangement in which a person is permitted to have two or more spouses at the same time. Although the term polygamy is often used loosely in everyday conversation, sociologists and anthropologists make important distinctions among its different forms. There are two main types of polygamy. The first, and by far…
In Ghana, there exists a long-standing practice in which some parents send their children to live with other families as househelps. While this arrangement is often justified as a strategy for providing children with better opportunities, it has, in many cases, become a source of profound exploitation and suffering. Many of these children are sent…
No one is born with knowledge. Human beings are born with the capacity to learn, but what they eventually know—how they speak, think, behave, believe, and interpret the world—is acquired from society. Knowledge, values, attitudes, and skills are socially produced and socially transmitted. By the time a Ghanaian child reaches the age of eighteen, that…
Among the Akan of Ghana, naming is never a casual act. Names locate a person in time, history, morality, and the spiritual universe. One of the most distinctive Akan naming practices is the giving of day names (kradin), assigned according to the day of the week on which a child is born. These names are…
The causes of Rural–Urban Migration are major concerns of African governments like Ghana. Across Ghana and much of Africa, a defining social transformation of the 21st century is the movement of people from the countryside to towns and cities. Every year, thousands of young people leave rural communities—villages and small towns—and migrate to urban centers…
In many Ghanaian communities, accusations of witchcraft generate intense moral outrage and social hostility. Persons believed to be malevolent witches are frequently subjected to verbal abuse, physical assault, forced displacement, and, in extreme cases, extrajudicial killing (Adinkrah, 2004, 2015). Crucially, however, the sanctioning of alleged witches does not necessarily terminate at biological death. Rather, death…
African witchcraft versus European witchcraft have been the focus of local discussions about witchcraft in Ghana for many years. During the period of European colonization, westernization, and the early stages of modernization, people in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) struggled to explain the wide gap in development between Africans and Europeans. Many ordinary people asked…
