Sesotho custom dictates that the wife is a legal minor (Epprecht, 2000:17) and the man is positioned as the head of the family, making all decisions for his wife and children.
Children see the way their parents communicate and they model their behaviour accordingly. This is due to the fact that an individual’s morals, values, principles and identity are first shaped in the family. The family is the chief foundation of societal learning; this is where children learn what valuable character traits are of importance and what comprises normal or acceptable behaviour (John Hopkins centre for communication programme 1995: n/p) Children then see the way their parents communicate, learn from it and come to believe that life is supposed to be that way.
Boys grow up modelling the father’s behaviour so that by the time they are in relationships, they are the ones who ‘call the shots’; they are the ones who make all the decisions in relationships, including whether they should use a condom or not. This silence that they have taken up from their father also puts pressure on them. They find it difficult to ask for information or advice because they are socialised into the role of ‘the one who knows’. This puts both them and their girlfriends at risk.
In the case of girls, having seen how their mother relates to their father, they also follow suit. Seeing the silence that is imposed on the mother by the father, the girl grows up believing that this is the way that things ought to be. This silence in a girl is also reinforced when she attains puberty and her mother dictates to her that she should not tell anyone that she has began her menstrual cycle. This encourages a culture of silence as the girl is prevented from knowing about issues regarding her own sexuality. Therefore, when the girl engages in sex she does not know how to negotiate safe sexual practices.
The culture of silence is also reinforced in women when they get married. During the litlhobohanyo the woman is told that she has a duty to please her husband and that whatever happens in the family should stay in the family. Thus when the husband abuses her she suffers in silence as per the advice of the elders. This creates a vicious circle that is passed on from generation to generation, causing women to internalise their oppression
to the extent that they believe there is nothing they can do to change it.
The culture of silence also means that parents do not talk to their children about relationships and sex because it is embarrassing for them, because it would look as if they are encouraging their children to have sexual relations, and because the church does not permit it. Thus parents do not talk to their children and would rather put their trust in establishments such as schools or radio programmes to do it for them, and because they do not ask their children, they do not know what information they are getting.
The culture of silence means that parents or families are aware that sometimes their children are engaged in sexual activities in exchange for money or, in the case of students in exchange for marks they do not deserve from their teachers. At the end of the day in the case where the child is getting money, the family benefits so they maintain silence and pretend that they do not see what is happening. Sometimes silence in the family is observed where the child is a breadwinner and does as she/he pleases, knowing that he/
she will not be reprimanded as he/ she is bringing in the money.
The culture of silence can also be observed in the way that language is used or in the choice of words used. Older people refrain from talking about sex because it is a taboo subject, resorting to indirect and euphemistic language instead (as in a mother telling her daughter ‘not to play with boys’ because she will get pregnant). Since in Sesotho culture questioning an elderly person is seen as a sign of disrespect, what the mother has communicated to the child amounts to nothing because the child does not see how playing with boys will get her pregnant.
Other examples of how language encourages silence can be seen in cases of rape where the victim is expected to use taboo words when she relates the forced sexual act to a courtroom full of people. One reason rape victims often do not report the crime is because of the language they are expected to use in court which is too explicit and culturally unacceptable.
When it comes to rape, language is not the only thing that encourages a culture of silence.
Victims are encouraged to not talk about the incident, especially if it was perpetrated by a family member as it will embarrass the family. Sometimes when the victim goes to the police station to report the matter she is silenced by the police, in the sense that they ask the victim to go back and try to resolve the matter within the family.
In the case of domestic violence the woman keeps quiet because it is a woman’s duty to please her husband and respect him. If the woman knows her husband’s infidelities and she refuses to have sex with him she runs the risk of being beaten.
Therefore the culture of silence means that people do not talk about issues which affect them and those who talk are not heard, which translates again into silence.