“We believe,” Kwesi told me, “that man is composed of two elements. Blood, which he inherits from his mother, and spirit, donated by his father. The stronger of these components is blood, which is why the child belongs to the mother and her clan—not to the father. If the wife’s clan orders her to leave her husband and return to her native village, she takes all the children with her, for although the wife lives in her husband’s village and house, she is there really only as a guest. This possibility of returning to her clan gives the woman a place to go should her husband abandon her.
