SOURCE: "Urbanization, the Extended Family, and Kinship Ties in West Africa," in Social Forces, Vol. 41, No. 1, October, 1962, pp. 6-12.

In the following essay, Aldous, applying methodology pioneered by Wirth, examines the effects of urbanization on family systems in parts of West Africa.

The effect of urbanization upon extended family relations has been extensively investigated within the last 10 years. The starting point for many of these studies has been Wirth's analysis of urbanism as a way of life written in 1938. According to Wirth, the city is a social organization that substitutes secondary for primary group relationships. Though dependent on more people for the satisfactions of his wants, the urbanite, unlike his rural counterpart, is not dependent upon particular persons, and his dependence is limited to a "highly fractionalized" part of other persons' activities. Contacts are segmental and of secondary character; no group can claim the complete allegiance of the...