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Home > Publications > Publications on sale > Nuptiality in Sub-Saharan Africa

Nuptiality in Sub-Saharan Africa - Contemporary Anthropological and Demographic Perspectives Caroline Bledsoe and Gilles Pison

This volume integrates diverse bodies of demographic and anthropological scholarship, bringing new insights to bear on a topic of longstanding interest in African ethnography: the dynamics of conjugal union and their implications for reproduction. Two much-needed contributions to the literature are offered here. The first is an analysis of the dynamics of marriage and partnership-formation in Africa. Many of the studies are based on careful field research, making this a rich and original source of information on this diverse and rapidly changing area. The other contribution is to incorporate recent theoretical perspectives in anthropology into the interpretation of demographic data. The contributors argue that these perspectives are necessary in order to understand the marriage process and ascertain its effects on demographic events such as fertility, divorce and child mortality. The volume's most unique contribution lies in an explicit reconceptualisation of marriage, arguably the most interesting, yet least studied of the core demographic variables. In Africa, marriage is often less a discrete event than a process lasting years; it involves transfers of wealth, the inception of sexual relations, the birth of children, and so on. Confronting recent views of the fluidity and negotiability of marital statuses, the contributions in this book offer new ways of perceiving nuptiality and the contexts it sets for reproduction. Caroline Bledsoe is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern university, Illinois. Gilles Pison is Professor of Demography and Anthropology, Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. 1994 - 326 p. - £33.75 (£45 for non-members)

Table of Contents

Part I: Demographic Overview

Post-Partum Abstinence, Polygyny, and Age at Marriage: A Macro-Level Analysis of Sub-Saharan Societies
Ron Lesthaeghe, Georgia Kaufmann, Dominique Meekers, and Johan Surkyn

Part II: Age at First Marriage

Marriage Drinks and Kola Nuts
étienne van de Walle and Dominique Meekers

Consequences of Bridewealth Changes on Nuptiality Patterns among the Ibo of Nigeria
uche C. Isiugo-Abanihe

Migration and Marriage Change: A Case Study of Mlomp, A Joola Village in Southern Senegal
Catherine Enel, Gilles Pison, and Monique Lefebvre

Part III: The Question of Legitimacy

Marriage Law in Sub-Saharan Africa
Iman Ngondo a Pitshandenge

Types of Marriage and Marital Stability: The Case of the Moba-Gurma of North Togo
Marc Pilon

The Effects of Education and Social Stratification on Marriage and the Transition to Parenthood in Freetown, Sierra Leone
Anastasia J. Gage and Caroline Bledsoe

Part IV: The Changing Face of Polygamy

The Historical Roots and Cultural Logic of Outside Marriage in Colonial Lagos
Kristin Mann

The Phenomenon of "Outside Wives": some Reflections on its Possible Influence on Fertility
Wambui Wa Karanja

Social Change and Marriage Arrangements: New Types of union in Lomé, Togo
Thérèse Locoh

Lineal Identities and Lateral Networks: The Logic of Polyandrous Motherhood
Jane I. Guyer

Part V. Sexuality and Reproduction in Problematic unions

The Impact of Marriage Change on the Risks of Exposure to Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Africa
Michel Caraël

Marital Status and Abortion in Sub-Saharan Africa
John Caldwell and Pat Caldwell

The Implications of Premarital Childbearing for Infant Mortality: The Case of Côte d'Ivoire
Dominique Meekers

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