Enduring Polygamy - 9781978831148

Enduring PolygamyPlural Marriage and Social Change in an African Metropolis\nAuthor(s): Bruce Whitehouse\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Rutgers University Press, United States\nImprint: Rutgers University Press\nISBN-13: 9781978831148, 978-1978831148\nSynopsis\nWhy hasn't polygamous marriage died out in African cities, as experts once expected it would? Enduring Polygamy considers this question in one of Africa's fastest-growing cities: Bamako, the capital of Mali, where one in four wives is in a polygamous marriage. Using polygamy as a lens through which to survey sweeping changes in urban life, it offers ethnographic and demographic insights into the customs, gender norms and hierarchies, kinship structures, and laws affecting marriage, and situates polygamy within structures of inequality that shape marital options, especially for young Malian women. Through an approach of cultural relativism, the book offers an open-minded but unflinching perspective on a contested form of marriag.