Boy-Wives and Female Husbands
Subtitle: studies in African homosexualities
By: edited by Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe.
Contributors: Murray, Stephen O.; Roscoe, Will.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 358
Subjects: Homosexuality -- Africa -- History.; Homosexuality -- Africa -- Public opinion.; Gay men -- Africa -- Identity.; Lesbians -- Africa -- Identity.; Homosexuality in literature.; Homophobia in literature.; Homophobia in anthropology.; Public opinion -- Africa.
Description: Historians, anthropologists, and many contemporary Africans alike have denied or overlooked African same-sex patterns or claimed that such patterns were introduced by Europeans. Among African Americans questions surrounding sexuality and gender in traditional African societies have become especially contentious. In fact, same-sex love was and is widespread in Africa. Boy-Wives and Female Husbands documents same-sex patterns in some fifty societies, in every region of the continent.

Essays by scholars from a variety of disciplines explore institutionalized marriages between women, same-sex relations between men and boys in colonial work settings, mixed gender roles in East and West Africa, and recent developments in South Africa, where lesbians and gays successfully made that nation the first in the world to constitutionally ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.

An invaluable resource for everyone interested in the continent's history and culture, Boy-Wives and Female Husbands reveals the denials of African homosexualities for what they are - prejudice and willful ignorance.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [325]-351) and index.