Inequality in Namibia has deep roots and today’s levels of inequality can be traced back
from the period of colonial dispossession to the market-driven economic policies
pursued after independence. Before colonisation, Namibia was predominantly an
agrarian economy, based on communal ownership of resources. In the pre-colonial
familial subsistence economies, particularly in crop growing societies, women provided
the primary source of labour, and their fertility ensured future labour supply (Haviland,
1993). Key forms of productive assets were not privately owned, land was communally
owned and even cattle often belonged to a corporate group. It was not possible for the
individual custodian of communal or corporately owned property to dispose of this
property in the way that he pleased, yet men could command the labour of women,
control social surpluses produced by primarily female labour, control women’s
sexuality and control their fertility. Despite the communal ownership of land, men
controlled land-use through gendered land-tenure and inheritance systems. The adult
male received land from the chief (who acted as the custodian of communally owned
land) and then in turn granted usufruct to his wife/wives, who provided most of the
labour in the familial subsistence economy (Hango-Rummukainen, 2000). Male control
over key productive assets was the basis for male control over surpluses (Guy, 1990;
Koopman, 1995). This formed the basis of a trajectory of gender inequalities that persist
up until today