A family (clan) might well move to a different location at a time of prolonged drought (= famine in Central Africa) or when the ground/range was depleted. But in the past it would be unusual for them to travel out of the area of their particular ethnic group (which might include some closely related tribes, e.g., the Tonga, IIa, and Lenje of south-central Zambia). Thus Elimelech’s action of transfer-ring his family from Judah to Moab (i.e. outside of the land of the “twelve tribes”) is atypical from an African perspective. A man might go off to work in a “foreign” place in order to earn some hard cash, but then he would generally travel alone, leaving his wife and children behind.

Source: Wendland 1987, p. 167.