Individualism and communalism in Yoruba proverbs.

Abstract

Abstract The main objective of this paper is to gauge the extent to which Yoruba society allows individual choice. The paper therefore examines Yoruba social practices as taught in Yorùba culture and its proverbial language to determine how and why constraints are set, the types of constraints that we accept from the society in which we live and relate them to what we do as individuals either obeying or flouting the social constraints. This is to see how language works through indigenous culture to promote communal practice and at the same time allow individual choice. The thrust of this paper will be based on Tschumi's (1978) theory of culture and Parson's theory of structural functionalism as used in McCarthy, Matthiessen and Slade (2002). The paper shows that Yoruba society constructs traditional positive norms of behaviors around which language is built to aid societal growth in general, but this is not to say that man is denied his personal opinion about life. It concludes that the choice we make can make or mar the society and that it is better to temper foreign individualism with African humane individualism that has always existed in our psyche.