Marriage, Perversion, and Power

This is the first scholarly study of African marriage relationships in Southern Rhodesia during the early twentieth century. It is a highly original and cogently argued history of sexuality and gender relations in colonial Africa. Diana Jeater’s analysis pays careful attention to methodological questions and fruitfully combines historical and anthropological approaches. Dr Jeater examines the marriage relationship and the regulation of sexuality in terms of both the poltiical and the production systems, and offers valuable insights into the nature of gender relationships before and during the colonial period. She analyses colonial ideology, its contradictions and its effects on the people of Southern Rhodesia, and explores the interactions between black and white, male and female. Marriage, Perversion, and Power is an important contribution to African history and to the study of gender relations.