Annie Bunting, Benjamin N. Lawrance, and Richard L. Roberts (Eds): Marriage by Force? Contestation over Consent and Coercion in Africa

Excerpt

Although forced marriage has been the subject of much scholarly attention and human rights activism for the past decade, there has not been a great deal of attention devoted to this phenomenon in Africa, and how it interacts with law and society in the region. The editors of this book sought to bring together the research and writing of a number of different scholars including anthropologists, historian, gender equity activists and development practitioners in order to explore the issue of coerced marriage in Africa. The authors published in this compilation discuss a number of different issues like gender subordination, diversity of sexual identities, and sociolegal regulation of marriage from each of their unique points of reference and areas of expertise. This results in a book that explores the role that marriage has played in the mobilization of labor, the accumulation of wealth, and the proliferation of gendered violence in Africa. …