“Marriage is relatively rare due to the need to pay bride price. Men running away from newborns is a habit in these parts. It just happens that aunts and uncles, or grandparents, will often step in to help out.
It is how things are managed in these parts. The women end up acting loose, and I have not heard of much stigma. The courts and government have to work to try to get men to take responsibility.
It is a very different culture from what Westerners are used to.“
I don’t know, it sounds like much of the black culture here. Maybe they have a different word for it.
There is an active system of Social Workers and District Commissioners who try to keep matters under control. Even if the couple is not married, there are shared responsibilities if a child is born and the man can be found.
Some key parts of the African cultural matrix must have been lost on the voyage across the Middle Passage - especially those parts which kept that society more or less properly functioning.