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 Queen Jumbe-Souli, queen of the Comorian island of Mohéli, with other Comorian women. The woman at the lower left is holding a child on her lap. Photographed in 1863. | |
| General Statistics | |
|---|---|
| Maternal mortality (per 100,000) | 280 (2010) |
| Women in parliament | 3.0% (2012) |
| Women over 25 with secondary education | NA |
| Women in labour force | 35.1% (2010) |
| Gender Inequality Index | |
| Value | NR |
| Global Gender Gap Index[1] | |
| Value | 0.631 (2022) |
| Rank | 134th out of 146 |
| Part of a series on |
| Women in society |
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Among men who can afford it, the preferred form of marriage appears to be polygyny with matrilocal residence. Although possible, the first marriage is formally initiated with the grand marriage when possible, subsequent unions involve much simpler ceremonies. The result is that a man will establish two or even more households and will alternate residence between them, a reflection, most likely, of the trading origins of the Shirazi elite who maintained wives at different trading posts. Said Mohamed Djohar, elected president in 1990, had two wives, one in Njazidja and the other in Nzwani, an arrangement said to have broadened his appeal to voters. For men, divorce is easy, although by custom a divorced wife retains the family home.
In the Comoros certain landholdings called magnahouli are controlled by women and inherited through the female line, apparently in observance of a surviving matriarchal African tradition.
Despite their lower economic status, women in the Comoros who are married to farmers or laborers often move about more freely than their counterparts among the social elite, managing market stands or working in the fields. On Mwali, where traditional Islamic values are less dominant, women generally are not as strictly secluded. Women constituted 40.4 percent of the work force in 1990, a figure slightly above average for sub-Saharan Africa.
- ^ "Global Gender Gap Report 2022" (PDF). World Economic Forum. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
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