Figure - woman with child

Dogon art abounds in depictions of a woman and child. They symbolically refer to maternal love and female fertility, which are highly valued in Africa. The women's ability to bear children is one of the most critical issues for the Dogon and all traditional African communities. The future of the family and the whole community depends on the fertility of women. Procreation, the appearance of successive generations, is a bond between the souls of the ancestors and their descendants. Although the Dogon admit that the fertility of a wife depends on the quality of the emotional relationship existing between the spouses, that is, on their mutual contact, the way they relate to each other, the words they exchange, they always blame the woman for the lack of offspring. Infertility is a big problem for a woman. Such a Dogon woman is treated as a person of no value, and her husband may send her away to her parents. In the Dogon country, there is polygyny, and one man can have more than one wife. So often, when a husband cannot wait to have children and does not want to send his wife away, he decides to take another. However, childlessness is not the only problem facing Dogon marriages. A tremendous pain for parents is also the high mortality rate of children, tiny ones. The Dogon want to have adult children because they know that they can count on their help in their old age. Although they rejoice at the birth of each child, they feel greater joy at the birth of a boy because a son stays with his parents, while a daughter, when she gets married, leaves the family homestead and moves to her husband's family.

Ewa Prądzyńska