Awra Amba RJ 300612 EN - Contacter un comité local d'Attac

4. Social organisation
that "the community members can go and marry the outsider. The outsider also can come and marry
a community member, but he should live our life; otherwise good bye." Only 5 couples of the village
out of 47 have a partner coming from outside, i.e. 10 %.
The minimum age of marriage has been discussed within the community and set at 19 for girls and
20 for men (Yi07/49; Jo10b) – 22 according to Crespo (2011) (Question 23 in Annex). Minors do
not have the right to marry and are punishable by severe penalties according to the communal status
(Me09/38). The single or divorced women are not disliked, as it is the case elsewhere (Ya08/79).
Finally, polygamy is discredited, thanks to the principle of gender equality (Me09/38) and does not
exist apparently (Question 24 in Annex).
Figure 10: Marital status by age and sex in 2005 in Awra Amba acc. to data by Atnafu (2005/35),
and comparison with 2007 census for the rural kebeles of Amhara region (CSA,
2007/178).
According to the detailed and comprehensive survey conducted by At05/35, out of 367 persons
counted (and no more 364 as indicated in the text and the census per age and sex), there was no man
married before age 20, only one girl being married between 15 and 19 years of age. Only 9 % of men
aged 20-24 were married, but 67 % of women. 75 % of men over 19 were married, but only 50 % of
women. Over 24 years, these figures were 88 and 46 % respectively (cf. Figure 10); but all people
over 24 years were or have been married. According to At05/34, young women marry usually
between the ages of 19 and 22, and young men between the ages of 20 and 25. These figures show
large differences with the rural population of the Amhara region of 2007 (CSA, 2007/178: see Figure
10), where 5 % of boys and 8 % of girls aged 10-14 are already married, and respectively 34 and
36 % between 15 and 19 years, whereas these figures are null or very low in Awra Amba. 34 % of
boys of the Amhara region are married before age 25, whereas they are only 9 % in Awra Amba.
Another difference concerns the older and especially women: while 92 % of men and 64 % of
women over 34 are married in the regional population, they are no more than 86 and 35 % in Awra
Amba. There are therefore in Awra Amba a much larger proportion of alone women, divorced or
widowed. Several men have been remarried with younger women after exile, after widowhood or
separation, but rarely with a young girl (At05/37 et 42).
Women are systematically younger than their husbands, the difference in age being between 0 and 27
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