Etymology Of The Trinidad Family & Women

                               A HISTORY OF WOMEN & FAMILY IN TRINIDAD & TOBAGO 





The Caribbean have a shared history of colonialism, slavery and racism which has shaped the social, cultural, economic and political foundations of their societies (Antrobus and Gordon 1984, 118-19). Trinidad was named by Christopher Columbus on his third voyage to the New World. On the morning of the 31 of July 1498, he saw what appeared to him as a trinity of hills along the southeastern coast. Originally, the island was called Iere, meaning "the land of the hummingbird," by its native Amerindian inhabitants but was however renamed by the Spaniards. Enslaved Africans were first brought to Trinidad and Tobago by the British for the production of sugar. Once slavery was abolished in 1838, sugar production came to rely heavily on the importation of indentured labor from India. Indian women, both Hindu and Muslim, were among those recruited in Calcutta and Madras to work on the sugar plantations. These occurrences led to the twin islands consisting of a crucible of different ethnicity which adds to the diversity in family units and dynamics.

The descendants of these Africans and East Indians now comprise the two dominant ethnic groups in Trinidad and Tobago, between them accounting for 83 per cent of the country's population. The East Indian Family is seen as being primarily patriarchal where the males are the dominant figures. This patriarchal makeup is said to be as a result of the kinship ties. Kinship ties were of extreme importance and played a vital role in the life of the East Indian. In traditional East Indian families, authority is in the hands of the older males in society, and those who went against the wishes of elders would be often ostracized from the community kin, women included. This ensured conformity and thus forced many women to marry young and seldom practiced visiting relationships as did the African family. This aspect of the East Indian family is said to be endemic to Hindu and Muslim cultures. The women in this family dynamic played subordinate roles in servitude to the man. They had no voice or were expected to have an opinion with their status being ornamental and not functional. It is for this reason why roles and divisions of labor in their community became biologically defined with the woman being expected to control the domestic domains- household chores and child-rearing.

The African family is different in respect to the East Indian. Their antithesis begins again with the woman for in this community the woman played the head of the household. This is as a result of many factors however begins with the fact that there is an absence of the man. Being Trinidad is in the Caribbean and synonymous to many other countries of said region slavery and indentureship is a common narrative. This absence of the man and the ascension of the woman is said to be as a result of African retentions. This describing the cultural traits brought and retained with them through slavery and beyond. One such cultural trait is the cultural pattern of polygamy where the father or male has several wives and so his role in each home becomes marginal. This give rise to the dominance of the woman in every aspect of everyday life. She had the voice and controlled the decisions of the household in every way.