child. I only come to the family house during the day to sell my goods, and at night my 

boyfriend comes to take me and the child home. [Eden] 

Unlike the two participants quoted above,  living  with a husband or a boyfriend did not 

necessarily mean that the girl kept her belongings at the boyfriend's house, that she ate with him 

daily, or that his house was the only place she slept. As described earlier, duolocality is the 

normal residential pattern for people living in Ga Mashi. For example, another participant who 

had two children (and two abortions) with her boyfriend said she lived with her boyfriend. Later, 

however, she also said, 

I live with my grandmother and my two children. We sit together and eat. But my 

boyfriend gives me chop money. [Bernadette] 

The consistent features of the relationships where participants referred to their partners as 

 husbands  are that they had between one and three children with their partners, the partners 

contributed some financial support on an ongoing basis, and they had maintained the relationship 

for at least four years (one as long as ten years). However, the same conditions applied to the 

lives of about half of the participants who said that they were  planning  or  hoping  to get 

married. The ones who said that they were planning to get married said this would happen when 

their boyfriends were earning more money. 

The description above indicates that there are multiple arrangements for stable unions;, 

thus, the meaning of the knocking ceremony must be interpreted in this context. The point is that 

none of the participants gave birth without first performing a knocking or similar rite and, 

therefore, they had an acknowledged father for the child or children. 

5.2.4  Giving Birth or Spacing Second Children 

The common logic girls applied to giving birth to second children was that if a girl had 

one child with her boyfriend, she might as well have two. According to participants, either they 

or their boyfriends applied this logic as a rationale for giving birth to a second child. For 

example, Naomi explained why she gave birth again at 18. 

I got pregnant again when my son was two years old. I wanted to abort it, but my 

boyfriend encouraged me to keep it since I already have a son with him. So I kept it for 

full term and gave birth to another boy. [Naomi]  

Sometimes a girl used the dangers of abortions to bolster her argument with her boyfriend 

if the couple had a history of giving birth together but the boyfriend did not want the girl to give 

birth in a particular instance. For example, Lily had one child with her  husband  and wanted a 

second one; she said,  

But I promised that after this second one I will abort any other pregnancies that come 

since I don't want to have more than two children I refused for the simple reason that I 

already had one child with him so there is nothing wrong with having a second one. 

Secondly, because my parents said I could die in the process of an abortion. [Lily] 

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