Human Rights & Democracy Movement

WOMEN, POLITICS AND DEMOCRACY IN TONGA
(By Dr. ‘Ana Maui Taufe’ulungaki)

Parts of this paper were taken from the author’s Overview Paper: Tonga prepared for the Conference on UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

1. INTRODUCTION:

1.1 The total population of Tonga in 1986 according to the 1986 Census was 94 649 of whom 47 611 or 50.3 per cent were males and 47,038 or 49.7 per cent were females. The distribution of males to females for the different age groups was as follows.

Table 1: Gender Distribution of the Population By Age Groups
(Source: 1986 Census)

Age	Total	Male	Female	Percentage Of Females
0-4	13,916	7,155	6,761	48.6
5-9	12,674	6,535	6,139	48.4
10-14	11,852	6,205	5,647	47.6
15-19	12,390	6,459	5,931	47.9
20-24	8,951	4,548	4,403	49.2
25-29	6,070	2,967	3,103	51.1
30-34	5,086	2,539	2,727	53.6
35-39	4,117	1,868	2,249	54.6
40-44	3,844	1,807	2,037	53.0
45-49	3,570	1,688	1,882	52.7
50-54	3,248	1,582	1,666	51.3
55-59	2,788	1,378	1,410	50.6
60-64	2,103	2,103	1,069	49.2
65+	3,967	1,942	2,025	49.2
NS	73	49	24	32.9

1.2 It can be seen from this table, that although more males were born than females (the average is about 53 per cent males to 47 per cent females), females predominated in the population from age 25 to 59. For my purposes, the reasons for this predominance do not matter greatly. What is important is the fact that females outnumber the males in the most productive age groups.

1.3 Some weeks ago, I received an invitation to be a panelist in this Convention. The invitation came with background documentation relating to the purposes of the convention, including letters of support from eminent members of the community. I was quite diverted and amused to be informed in one of those letters that:

A small group of young men fired with sense of social justice, fairness and Christian ethics has been working slowly since the late 1970’s to bring about a democratic situation – or at least a society informed with the highest ideals of democracy – in Tonga.

1.4 There was no mention of the gourp which constitutes more than half of Tonga’s productive population, the women who cook, wash, iron, clean house, provide comfort, care for the children and generally look after the thousand and one real, concrete and infinitely tedious domestic details in every household of the nation, the women whose drudgery and sacrifice have permitted those young men to pursue the large abstract issues of juctice, fairness and Christian ethics. I am reminded to J. M. Barle’s words:

Every man who is high up loves to think that he has done it all himself: and the wife smiles, and lets it go at that. It’s our Joke. Every woman knows that.

1.5 However, I am not surprised that women were overlooked in the planning of this Convention. The Chairman of the Convention and two of the support writers belong to an institution where equity issues as they relate to women have been largely ignored for the last one thousand years. Women’s equality issues within the modern day Christian church have not improved significantly. The secretary, a member of Parliament, once proposed a motion in the House to defer the Secondary Entrance Examination, presently sat at Class 6, to the end of Form 2, the main reason being that too many girls are admitted to Tonga High School. Tonga’s premier secondary school, a situation which has prompted an another disgruntled male to dub it Tonga Girls High School. The Honourable member and his peer need not have concerned themselves unduly. The modern Tongan systems are structured to favour the males of the population. The traditional rights and privileges of women were not institutionalised either in Tonga’s Constitution and legal system or in the Christian church bureaucracies. Powles, the recognised authority on the Tongan Constitution and constitutional history, mentioned “three levels of privilege under the law (i) the King (ii) nobles and (iii) tofi’a holding matapule, and their respective immediate families (1990:155). He omitted to mention a fourth group – the males of the nation, of whom he stated:

The advantages conferred by the Constitution on the ‘ordinary’ Tongan male were substantial. If he was not a ‘disinherited chief he had gained potential benefits under a land distribution scheme, the guarantee of a measure of representation in parliament and governmental framework which could prevent the worst abuses of warfare and upheaval. At the end of the nineteeth century, he would not have regarded being classified a ‘commoner’ as in any sense degrading. Indeed, he possessed a degree of political recognition which no other Pacific Islander would have understood. (1990:156)

1.6 Alas, for the Tongan female! It seems to me, then, that when we talk about “equality” under the Constitution and under the law, the issue this Convention should be addressing is not commoner power deprivation versus power control by King and nobles but full and equal rights and privileges for all Tongan citizens irrespective of gender and due recognition and accommodation of these within the existing institutions and structures of modern Tonga. The modern Tongan males have conveniently forgotten or overlooked the rights of women, either because the status quo is legitimised by the legal system and structured in their favour, or because the gender equity issues are usually assumed to be subsumed under the larger banner of political equity and democracy. What my male colleagues are just beginning to understand is that the visions, hopes and aspirations of the nation, including the issues of democracy, cannot hope to be achieved without the consent, support and active participation of the majority of Tonga’s productive population, the women of the nation.

1.7 My immediate personal reason for participating in this Convention is to ensure that women too have a voice in discussions of issues which have had and will have profound and lasting effects on the quality of their lives and those of their children. As a member of that forgotten majority, I am speaking today that they be not ignored. In the process, I may assist in educating the males of the nation of the strengths and unique qualities that women can and do bring to the development of our nation.

1.8 I was asked, as afterthought, to speak on “The Political Status of Women and Democracy”. I intend to spend most of this paper on looking at the statuses of women, past and present, including their political situations, and, then, very briefly look at their implications and significance for democratic developments.

2. THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL STATUSES OF WOMEN: THE PRE-CONTACT PERIOD

2.1 Pre-Colonial Social and Political Structures.

2.1.1 Tongan traditional society was highly stratified. Both the social and political structures were based on units linked loosely together through elaborate kinship networks. It was a very complex system, made more difficult by the fact that the social and political units were sometimes synonymous or overlapped and at other times contradictory. However, it should be noted that the social and political units more or less operated under similar principles.

2.1.2 Tongan society was organised in a form of a pyramid. At the top were the ruling monarchs, the Tu’i Tonga. Tu’i Ha’atakalaua and Tu’i Kanokupolu, in descending order. Below these groups were the chiefly familities or ‘eiki, who were members of the aristocracy by virtue of impeccable blood lines and hereditary titles. In the next level were those known as matapule (similar to ‘talking chiefs’ in Samoa) who were functionaries of titled and hereditary chiefs. Below these were ranked the vast majority of Tongans, who were known as tu’a or commoners. Below them were the lowest level of society, the popula or slaves and the outcasts.

2.1.3 Theoretically all land belonged to the King, which was held on his behalf by titled, hereditary chiefs. Payment for use of the land was through allegiance and homage to the ruling dynasties in the form of fighting men and labour (when demanded), and the annual obligatory payment of the ‘inasi (the yearly contribution of foodstuff and koloa) or ‘first fruits’. These titled chiefs were grouped into ha’as (political units) which were ranked in accordance with the seniority of their blood links and marriage affiliations with the ruling dynasties. The ha’as were both political and social units, but were not as entities discretely identified with a particular geographical territory. However, a chief of a ha’a was head of an inherited estate, and, as far as political authority was concerned, was lord and master within his own geopraphical parameters.

2.1.4 In each chiefly estate would reside the chiefs ‘kainga’, a kinship group related either by blood ties or marriage to the chief of the estate, all of whom would constitute his subjects. But as Bott (1981) pointed out an individual became a member of the kainga not so much by blood ties but by virtue of residency. An individual became a member of the kainga by residing within a particular territory regardless of his relationship to the chief of the estate. The kainga was further sub-divided into fa’ahinga, which was more of a social than political unit. The members of the fa’ahinga were blood relations but did not constitute a discrete political unit because they did not all necessarily reside in the same estate. They could be activated as a group, however, for social functions such as funerals and weddings and only very rearely for political reasons. The famili or (limited extended family) constituted the basic social unit of Tongan society. These groups consisted of a father, mother, and their children plus possibly grandparents, uncles, aunts, and unmarried cousins from both sides of the family. These basic units resided in one chiefly estate.

2.1.5 The concept of rank is pivotal to an understanding of the Tongan socio-political structure. ‘Rank’ was the “quality commanding respect and deference, and inhereited from one’s parents’ and could not be ‘altered either by one’s own achievements or by one’s failures’ (Bott, 1981:10). The kinship links or blood ties in pre-contact Tongan determined to a large extent the political and social rank of any individual in the society. But although blood ties were all important, it was not the only element in the equation. Sex and age were also important considerations and all these were mediated throught the further principles of ‘power’ and ‘authority’. ‘Power’ was the ‘de facto’ ability to lead a group and direct its activities’ and ‘authority’ was ‘legitimate, institutionalised power’ (Bott, 1981:10). These principles operated at the famili level as well as in the larger political society. Thus although the ‘Tu’i Tonga by viture of his rank, his title and religious significance was considered the highest authority in the land, he was by no means the person of highest rank. That honour belonged to his eldest sister, the Tu’i Tonga Fefine (Female King) and her eldest daughter, the Tamaha (or sacred child). But although they held the highest rank they had no political authority, but were considered through their privileges of rank to be quite powerful. In the famili unit, the father had the highest authority, but any one of his sisters outranked him socially, although none of them, even his eldest sister, had any authority over him. Access to land and titles was achieved only through the father and his family. However, in some instances, especially in chiefly marriages, land and titles might have been given by the woman’s family as part of their obligation to give her and her children support. All sisters outranked their brothers and older siblings of the same sex outranked the younger siblings of the same sex. Children of the father were of lower rank than the father and his family but they were of higher rank than their mother and her kin. Every individual in the famili, therefore, had a different social rank.

2.1.6 In the social structure then, women outranked their male relatives. The father’s eldest sister had the highest rank within the family, and was accorded fahu status. The fahu has been defined as the person (usually woman) with ‘unlimited authority’ (Latukefu, 1974:3) over others within her blood kin. This meant in social terms that this woman and her children had the right to ask and expect goods and services from her brothers and mother’s brothers (fa’e tangata or male mother) and kin over whom she was fahu. However, she had no authority over them, and neither could she inherit land or title, although on occasions her brothers and kin could choose to honour her by granting her sons either land or the succession to titles or both. Sisters, although they had no authority were oftern through the fahu system quite powerful (though their power was more covert than overt), and it has been claimed that in the old days no important decision was made in any social unit without the consent of the ‘eldestsister’ (Rogers, 1977). Brothers inherited titles and land and could acquire both power and authority. In this sense, the Tongan kinship system has been labeled patrilineal, but in deference to the complexity of the situtation and the numerous instances in history in which inherited titles and land had been acquired through women and in recognition of the real power women wielded in the social spheres, many anthropologists have preferred to describe the Tongan kinship system as at best cognatic, with patrilineal tendencies (James, 1988; Marcus, 1977; Dektor-Korn, 1974.)

2.1.7 While the superior rank of women in Tongan society has been taken for granted, it is only recently that attempts have been made to explain the phenomenon. Rogers (1977) and James (1988) have attributed the elevation of women to their inherited mystical powers, which were passed on through the female lines from mothers to daughters. James (1988) describes below the relationships of women with the importance attached to certain items of significance used in the old days in ceremonies. The most valuable items were one exclusive to chiefs, revered, and precious; koloa fakatonga of the highest order. Such items of koloa were also associated, in ways which are not now entirely clear, with the old gods, with their physical emanations as idols, and with their earthly descendants and priestly representatives, the ‘eiki, particularly chiefly women.

2.1.8 The ’eiki quality was transmitted through blood links through the females lines. The importance of the ‘blood lines’, therefore, in pre-contact Tonga in establishing status and rank both in the social spheres and in the larger political society cannot be doubted. Bott (1981) and Biersack (1990) mentioned one of the most interesting dualities in Tongan history: that of the blood and the garland. Biersack wrote:
In an idiom of ‘garland’ and ‘blood’, Tongans themselves distinguish between the person and his rank, on the one hand, the title and its rank, on the other. The title is metaphorically said to be a ‘garland’ the titleholder wears. In contrast, personal rank is ‘blood’ rank, the rank of the ‘body’. The title was and is still spoken of as ‘garland’ (kakala), meaning that it can be taken away whereas the ‘blood’ (toto) is one’s forever…. There is a sense in which the title rank is inferior to blood rank. A titleholder having no royal blood merely wears a garland, for example; and high aristocrats sometimes shun public office because they consider it beneath their dignity to hold a title (Biersack, 1990:48).
She further asserted that:
Among high aristocrats, the preferences for status congruity is clear. Heirs have occasionally declined a title because they believed themselves to be insufficiently aristocratic in blood to merit it. At times heirs have even permitted succession through the female line lest their inferior blood tarnish the prestige of the title. (Biersack, 1990:53).

3. CUSTOM AND THE STATUS OF WOMEN

3.1 Because both societal and social ranks were predominantly determined by the rank of the mother, the giving of women in marriages was very important politically, economically and socially. Whichever group was in the position to receive the wife was always in a superior position to the wife-giving group since her brothers and her mother’s brothers were expected to continue to support her in her fahu position with foods and services. Her children will always possess superior ranks to those of their own children.

3.2 The importance of the wife-giving/wife-receiving custom was made most apparent in the political arena and at the chiefly level. The Tu’i Tonga was the supreme sovereign of Tonga. He possessed complete temporal and spiritual powers over his subjects. The divine aspects of his authority were derived from the fact that the first Tu’i Tonga, from whom all others claimed direct descent, was the son of Tangaloa, the god of the sky and an earth mother. He was, therefore, regarded as a demi-god and was worshipped as one. In the fifteenth century as a consequence of a series of political assassinations, the Tu’i Tonga created the office of hau or was forced to devolve the secular power of his office upon his younger brothers, while he retained only the sacred functions of kingship. The new dynasty became know as the Tu’i Ha’atakalaua. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, another hau (dynasty) was created by the sixth Tu’i Ha’atakalaua, and became known as the Tu’i Kanokupolu. The administration of the nation was finally devolved upon the youngest of the dynasties. But even though the power of the Tu’i Tonga was diminished as a consequence of these new political developments, his hegemony was maintained through the employment of the female supremacy principle. The younger dynasties (first the Tu’i Ha’atakalaua and later the Tu’i Kanokupolu) provided the Tu’i Tonga’s moheofo or chief wife. The son of the union became the next Tu’i Tonga, who was in a fahu position to his mother’s kin (Latukefu, 1974:1-3).

3.3 Tongan history abounds with numerous examples of marriage strategies pursued by both high chiefs and junior lines to establish political capital through the prerogatives of blood alone. One example was the complex strategy adopted by Taufa’ahau to elevate his own heir in relation to the heir of his senior, Laufilitonga, the last Tu’i Tonga. Taufa’ahau withheld the giving of his sister as a moheofo to Laufilitonga. He gave her instead to another chief, to whom she bore a child. She was then given to Laufilitonga, but the child she bore him was made representative of the Tu’i Tonga line but without assuming the title, which was allowed to lapse (Biersack, 1990). Another example, was the marriage of Mataeleha’amea. She was happily married to Tongatangakitaulupekifolaha, son of Tu’i Houa, son of Tu’i Tonga ‘Uluakimata, by whom she had a son, Futakifolaha. At that time a man called Fisilaumali, powerful but of low rank, was living in the Hahake district where he had a large piece of land and a strong kainga. The Tu’i Kanokupolu did not have any supporters at Hahake, where the Tu’i Tonga and his supporters lived. So Fusipala’s brothers kidnapped their sister, forced her to leave her husband and child and married her to Fisilaumali. They had a son, Lekaumoana, who was the founding ancestor of the Tu’i Pelehake title (Bott, 1981). The custom of the kitetama marriage (between a man and his mother’s brother’s daughter), although not prescribed, or preferred, was occasionally practiced among the highest chiefs to prevent social repercussions that might result if a Tu’i were outranked by a collacteral line…, cross-cousin marriage was a … political move to prevent the interference of kainga status principles (which accord women and their children highest personal status) at the societal level, and to assure that the offspring would have the highest possible rank within a certain line. (Kaeppler, 1971:192-3)

In a similar move to diminish the power of the Tu’i Tonga Fefine and the Tamaha, conferred by superior blood lines, they were married to chiefs of a foreign line, the ha’a Fale Fisi. This meant that, although the Tu’i Tonga Fefine’s children had the highest possible personal rank through their mother, their title rank was necessarily inferior; chiefs of a foreign line, they constituted no serious threat to the paramount (Biersack, 1990:53).

3.4 At the lower level, the same principle was applied, and a brother was expected to give support to the group into which his sister married, and to her children as well as to his father’s sister and her children. In the marriage exchanges, as in all other ceremonies celebrating the life-cycle, from marriage through births to child-naming to death, the grooms’s group were the beneficiaries while the bride’s family were normally the losers. There was no expectation that the gift presented by the bride’s family would be reciprocated. In some cases, land and titles were given as well by the wife’s family as part of their contribution towards her support and those of her children. In some instances the bride’s family welcomed the opportunity of such conspicuous presentations to demonstrate their confidence in their economic and political strengths, that is, they could afford to provide spectacular support for a sister or an ‘ilamutu (sister’s daughter or father’s sister’s daughter). Thus, through judicious arranged marriages, not only dynasties but chiefs and commoners alike consolidated and enhanced their political and social influences and powerbases. Women in such marriages had considerable power. They brought wealth, both political and social power and prestige to their husbands’ kainga, and similar honours to their children, and further more, through these, they would gain protection for the groups into which they marry would have been wary of offending her powerful brothers and kin (Bott, 1981).

3.5 But women were not only important as political and economic assets. It should be noted that they were valued probably more for their mystic powers or what Rogers (1977) termed the ‘black power’ of the father’s sister. The sister, and father’s sister, as both James (1988) and Rogers (1977) suggest were not honoured and respected by their brothers and brother’s children merely for the sake of conforming to the dictates of institutionalised social customs and manners. There was always the covert threat of the mystic powers that were purported to be inherited through the female lines, which the mehikitanga or father’s eldest sister (or any sister for that matter, but this power was alleged to be most powerful in the hands of the father’s eldest sister) could exercise for the good or ill among her brothers and mother’s brothers and their children. This power gave the sister the right, for example, to veto her brothers’ decisions regarding land rights and inherited titles, to have control over their brothers’ children, goods and services, and to influence the production and disbursements of those goods and services. At the same time, they could choose to use such power for the comfort and support of their male kin. The brothers and their children reciprocated at worst with respect, goods and services and at best with love, loyalty and life-long commitment.

3.6 The division of labour between the sexes in pre-contact Tonga was a direct manifestation of the societal and religious concepts of the essences of female and male. Work which required hard physical labour, and implied ‘sweat’ and ‘dirt’ were allocated to men. The heavy planting, hoeing and harvesting of crops, fishing, cooking and heavy craft work, such as cone-making and house construction were the domains of men. Light agricultural duties, such as weeding of home gardens, growing of ‘akau kakala (plants with scented flowers, leaves, roots or barks) for scented oil-making, mat weaving, tapa-cloth and craft work relating to these were considered appropriate for women. The raising of children, although largely the responsibility of women, was shared among members of the extended family, including the males.

3.7 It should be noted that there was a marked difference between the work of chiefly women and those of the lower rank. Women of chiefly rank were in a privileged position indeed. They did not have to ‘labour’ to produce commodities. They could supervise the work of other women and make garlands for personal decorations, and even design kupesi for tapa making. They also to a large extent through their management of key ceremonies such as births, name-making, and marriages, control the production and dispositions of koloa fakatonga, although technically all commodities belonged to the chief of the estate for such items were integral in formal gift exchanges. Tu’a women on the other hand had no control whatsoever over either the production or distribution of such items. Neither groups of women had control over their children, who belonged to the father’s side of the family and therefore, ‘eiki to them. But even though women, as mother’s, appear to have few privileges, they recouped their losses as sisters and as fahu to her brothers and their children and her mother’s brothers’ children.

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