Social and Cultural Anthropology by Monaghan John; Just Peter; & Peter Just

Author:Monaghan, John; Just, Peter; & Peter Just
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2000-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

If, as in the case of the levirate, marriage does not require that both partners be living, neither need it require that partners be of the opposite sex. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, who worked in the Azande kingdoms of central Africa in the 1930s, reported that warriors would sometimes marry young boys, who would perform wifely duties, including those of a sexual nature. Such marriages included paying a brideprice to the boy’s family, and if someone else had sexual relations with the boy the warrior could bring charges of adultery. Similarly, in ancient Dahomey (now Benin) a wealthy woman might marry a younger woman who was expected to take male lovers so as to produce heirs. In each of these cases the conventions, rights, and obligations surrounding marriages between men and women also apply. While these examples seem akin to the same-sex marriages some advocate in the West, it should be pointed out that the Azande and Dahomey same-sex marriages, as well as others reported in the ethnographic literature, are based on explicit asymmetries, not the kind of partnership and equality that Western advocates of same-sex marriages have in mind.

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