Establishing “Stable Beginnings” through Alternative Channels: Voluntary Association Membership, Marriage, and Women’s Socioeconomic Welfare in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso

Obstacles to marriage have long occupied literature on marriage in sub-Saharan Africa. Many young women in urban Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, undergo this rite of passage despite financial constraints, but their marriages remain problematic from their perspective. Attainment of this new status through communally recognized means should leave them with feelings of socioeconomic security, yet many express the opposite. They link their insecurity to the conditions under which they married and use the terms mariage cadeau and mariage crédit to describe marriages with undesirable beginnings. This paper examines how some use the resources available through voluntary associations and rotating credit groups in marriage to lay a strong foundation upon which successful marriages are built.