major economic activities of rural Haiti are centered on agriculture. The people, both male and female, are essentially farmers.

For couples who are married or have a marital arrangement, their major economic and financial activities, which is centered around food crop farming, is a coope

Preamble
Gender roles and family relationships in Haiti have their roots in the diverse cultural backgrounds of the populace. Broadly speaking, the two major cultural influences are African and French. At one extreme is the African heritage. Among the Afro-Haitians who occupy the three lowest classes in the Haitian society, Middle Class, Urban Low Class and Rural Peasantry, the African cultural heritage is still very strong. This is particularly evident in the areas of marital relationships, defined roles of each gender before and after marriage, types of marriages and the extended family system. At the other extreme you have the Franco-Haitians or mulattoes, who have embraced French heritage wholesale, and who occupy the elite upper class of Haitian society.

Rural Haiti
Rural Haiti is where the vast majority of Haitians live and the people are mostly Afro-Haitians. In these parts of Haiti, the twin influences of their African heritage and the people’s experience of slavery have combined to define their family and marital relationships and the roles of the two genders (male and female) in these relationships. The major economic activities of rural Haiti are centered on agriculture. The people, both male and female, are essentially farmers.

For couples who are married or have a marital arrangement, their major economic and financial activities, which is centered around food crop farming, is a cooper

cupy the three lowest classes in the Haitian society, Middle Class, Urban Low Class and Rural Peasantry, the African cultural heritage is still very strong. This is particularly evident in the areas of marital relationships, defined roles of each gender before and after marriage, types of marriages and the extended family system. At the other extreme you have the Franco-Haitians or mulattoes, who have embraced French heritage wholesale, and who occupy the elite upper class of Haitian society.

Rural Haiti
Rural Haiti is where the vast majority of Haitians live and the people are mostly Afro-Haitians. In these parts of Haiti, the twin influences of their African heritage and the people’s experience of slavery have combined to define their family and marital relationships and the roles of the two genders (male and female) in these relationships. The major economic activities of rural Haiti are centered on agriculture. The people, both male and female, are essentially farmers.

For couples who are married or have a marital arrangement, their major economic and financial activities, which is centered around food crop farming, is a coope

ges and the extended family system. At the other extreme you have the Franco-Haitians or mulattoes, who have embraced French heritage wholesale, and who occupy the elite upper class of Haitian society.

Rural Haiti
Rural Haiti is where the vast majority of Haitians live and the people are mostly Afro-Haitians. In these parts of Haiti, the twin influences of their African heritage and the people’s experience of slavery have combined to define their family and marital relationships and the roles of the two genders (male and female) in these relationships. The major economic activities of rural Haiti are centered on agriculture. The people, both male and female, are essentially farmers.

For couples who are married or have a marital arrangement, their major economic and financial activities, which is centered around food crop farming, is a coope

ve and the people are mostly Afro-Haitians. In these parts of Haiti, the twin influences of their African heritage and the people’s experience of slavery have combined to define their family and marital relationships and the roles of the two genders (male and female) in these relationships. The major economic activities of rural Haiti are centered on agriculture. The people, both male and female, are essentially farmers.

For couples who are married or have a marital arrangement, their major economic and financial activities, which is centered around food crop farming, is a coope

major economic activities of rural Haiti are centered on agriculture. The people, both male and female, are essentially farmers.

For couples who are married or have a marital arrangement, their major economic and financial activities, which is centered around food crop farming, is a cooperative effort between a man and his wife. Haiti's rural culture values women's economic contribution to the farm; in that all income generated through agricultural production belongs to both husband and wife. The farm work is arranged in such a way that the activities of the wife complement those of the husband. While the man does all the hard work in preparing the land for cultivation, bush clearing, tilling and hoeing; the wife does the complementary work of weeding, pruning and harvesting.

As a follow-up to the harvest, the wife processes the produce for sale in the market. Crops like cassava tubers are processed into cassava flour and cassava starch, by the woman, before taking them to the market for sale. The woman is solely responsible for marketing their farm harvest. The proceeds from the sales are used for taking care of the needs of the whole family. For couples who have a ‘plasaj’ or concubinage marital arrangement, economic security arrangements are made for the woman. The husband, apart from providing a house for the woman, she is likely to be a second wife, is also required to cultivate a plot of land for the wife’s own farm.

Rural women,