The ukuhlonipha code of respect. Gender and cultural tensions around the Zulu nurses: a case of the Emmaus Mission Hospital

Abstract

The intention of this article is to show how the acquisition of a Western school education – especially from the mission schools in the then Zululand and Natal – empowered women to attain relative independence from Zulu patriarchy. The author of this article drew on cultural hermeneutics as explained by Musimbi Kanyoro (Introducing feminist cultural hermeneutics 2002:66), which is a way of looking critically at culture as capable of oppressing sections of society. The article will argue that the Zulu women nurses challenged the ukuhlonipha code of respect, which Benedict Carton (2000:50) explains thus: In ukuhlonipha, a custom of deference, male and female youths and married women avoided male elders as means of respect and homage. Although the ukuhlonipha code in its broader sense also covers the respect shown by any young person to any older person irrespective of sex, this article refers to the ukuhlonipha code as it is primarily observed by children and women in relation to men, as defined by Carton. By means of interviews, this article uses the case of the Emmaus Mission Hospital of the Berlin Mission Society (BMS) to show that the turn of events in which women managed to undermine Zulu patriarchy and androcentrism, was inevitable. As Sue Russel (sic) wrote in her book Conversion, identity and power (1999), those people who have knowledge and resources that are sought by others Radikobo Ntsimane acquire power, as those who seek these resources will gather around them for as long as they need those resources. The cultural tensions within the hospitals were enormous, but the women nurses were empowered enough to surmount them.