Conjugal rights : marriage, sexuality, and urban life in colonial Libreville, Gabon / Rachel Jean-Baptiste.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jean-Baptiste, Rachel, author.

Series:

New African histories series.

New African Histories Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Marriage--Gabon--Libreville--History.

Marriage.

Divorce--Gabon--Libreville--History.

Divorce.

Sex--Gabon--Libreville--History.

Sex.

Customary law--Gabon--Libreville--History.

Customary law.

Gabon--History--1839-1960.

Gabon.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (317 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Conjugal Rights is a history of the role of marriage and other arrangements between men and women in Libreville, Gabon, during the French colonial era, from the mid-nineteenth century through 1960. Conventional historiography has depicted women as few in number and of limited influence in African colonial towns, but this book demonstrates that a sexual economy of emotional, social, legal, and physical relationships between men and women indelibly shaped urban life. Bridewealth became a motor of African economic activity, as men and women promised, earned, borrowed, transferred, and absconded

Contents:

Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Introduction: Narrating a History of Domestic Life, Sexuality, Being, and Feeling in Urban Africa; Part I: From Atlantic Ocean Trading Post to Colonial Capital City, 1849-1929; 1: Sexual Economy in the Era of Trade and Politics; 2: Planning, Protest, and Prostitution; Part II: Libreville's Growth, 1930-1960; 3: Migration and Governance; 4: The Bridewealth Economy; 5: Jurisprudence; 6: "Faire Bon Ami"(To Be Good Friends); 7: "A Black Girl Should Not Be with a White Man"; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780821445037

0821445030

OCLC:

885123165