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Book Review: "Boy‐Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African

Homosexualities", edited by Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe

Article in American Journal of Sociology · November 2000

DOI: 10.1086/318982

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Pitzer College
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American Journal of Sociology

here, then, is a relation between sexuality and power that rests not so
much on the traditional framework of sexual repression—only one of
numerous possible discourses—rather, on the normalizing effects pro-
duced in multiple discourses of sexuality and desire. One contribution of
this study, indeed, is to demonstrate that the “deployment of sexuality”—in
Michel Foucault’s sense—serves as a dense transfer point for power re-
lations in India as much as in the West (p. 132). It is thus in the very
constructions of normality as well as of sexual pleasure and desire that
strategies of social control reside. The further contribution of this study
is its emphasis on women’s narratives themselves that reveal the role of
internalization and self-regulation in reproducing normative aspects of
gender and sexuality. Often, in fact, women’s personal narratives also
draw upon the dual resources of national and transnational cultural dis-
courses to disrupt and redefine normative hegemonic codes. Finally, and
perhaps most important, this study goes a long way toward challenging
the popular framework of Western versus non-Western or “traditional”
versus “Westernized” in the traditional scholarship on gender and sexuality
in India. Of particular note, indeed, is the nuanced discussion of “arranged
marriages” and “love marriages” that refuses to fit into the paradigm of
a progressive modernization or Westernization of traditional Indian cul-
tural norms (pp. 135–45).
One could certainly quibble with this or that aspect of the study. Some
would certainly wish to see a more rigorous analysis than is afforded here
of the way that national and transnational cultural discourses inter-
penetrate. The “transnational,” as used in this book, needs much more
unpacking than Puri’s invocation of the term allows. The concluding
discussion of the contours of an oppositional politics that simultaneously
engages with national and transnational hegemonies likewise deserves to
be fleshed out much more. These caveats notwithstanding, this is an
important and provocative book. Both the specialist in India and the
general reader will find much to admire in this rich study of the narratives
of gender and sexuality in India.

Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities.

Edited by Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe. New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1998. Pp. xxii1358. $29.95.

Peter M. Nardi
Pitzer College

As part of a continuing project to understand, document, and analyze the

range of same-sex patterns around the world, Stephen Murray and Will
Roscoe have put together a remarkable collection of articles on African
homosexualities. The same scholars together had previously edited a col-
lection on Islamic homosexualities and individually have published im-

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Book Reviews

portant books on same-sex sexuality among native North Americans and

U.S. gays and lesbians, on Oceanic homosexualities, and on Latin Amer-
ican male homosexuality. Boy-Wives and Female Husbands contributes
to the project of understanding the organization of same-sex sexuality
globally and, in so doing, provides an encyclopedia of information on
Africa that has no parallel in academic literature.
What is most striking about the collection is the very detailed review
of the research about same-sex relationships in Africa. Ranging from 18th-
century publications to material from the late 1990s, the approximately
25-page bibliography and accompanying preface, introduction, and four
section overviews are as comprehensive a set of summaries of literature
as any I have seen on a subject about which so little has been previously
compiled. The editors have done a stellar job in pulling together a wide
range of resources and information about African homosexualities, which
at times leaves the reader overwhelmed with information, terms, and
descriptions almost too rich to comprehend in any one sitting.
The editors have included an appendix summarizing over 50 African
peoples and the terms they use to describe same-sex sexual relationships.
This greatly assists nonanthropologists in making sense of the surfeit of
information about the cultures and the regional phrases and dialects scat-
tered throughout the book that various language groups in Africa have
developed to talk about same-sex sexuality. It would also have been useful,
though, to organize the appendix by terms used to describe same-sex
relationships.
In addition to the excellent overview and introductory chapters, the
book collects eight original article (by Nii Ajen, Deborah Amory, Joseph
Carrier, Marc Epprecht, Rudolf Gaudio, and Stephen Murray), reprints
two difficult-to-find articles (by Michael Davidson and by Kendall),
and—most interesting—provides English translations (by Will Roscoe and
Bradley Rose) of one French and four German articles originally published
in 1732, 1899, and the 1920s. In addition, a concluding chapter concisely
summarizes the major themes and ideas. Unfortunately, biographical
sketches of the authors and the translator are not provided.
What is intriguing about African homosexuality is the denial of same-
sex sexuality in ethnographies and the statements of some informants,
despite numerous examples to the contrary. As the editors write (p. 267),
“Absence of evidence can never be assumed to be evidence of absence,”
and they proceed to provide just the evidence needed to make a solid
argument that same-sex patterns are more diverse in Africa than in other
regions of the world; that homosexuality is often viewed as normal, nat-
ural, and routine, except where Islam and Christianity have influence;
and that homosexual behavior and identity are not a result of Western
influence and colonialism but are “traditional” and “indigenous” in many
African societies.
Homosexuality is inextricably linked to the belief systems of various
African peoples, both historically and in the contemporary cultures, as

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American Journal of Sociology

the authors and editors carefully demonstrate. Yet, recent events in Zim-
babwe (where gays and lesbians have organized in response to President
Robert Mugabe’s public labeling of homosexuality as “subanimal behav-
ior”) and South Africa (whose constitution includes a clause prohibiting
discrimination based on sexual orientation) illustrate a more Western civil
rights influence.
While African cultures promote procreation through heterosexual mar-
riage, this does not mean that heterosexual desire and monogamy are
expected. As the classic and contemporary readings in Boy-Wives and
Female Husbands show, there exists a complex arrangement of same-sex
relationships that cross boundaries of gender, social status, and age. Al-
though most same-sex patterns in Africa can be characterized by gender-
defined roles, the writers present fascinating examples of age-differenti-
ated and “egalitarian” (nonstratified) arrangements. And, in a clever
quantitative analysis of data from the Human Relations Area File, cor-
relations between same-sex patterns and some social variables suggest,
inter alia, that African societies with age-stratified male homosexuality
are more likely matrilineal; those with gender-stratified male same-sex
sexuality are more likely patrilineal; and in cultures with a nonstratified
organization of male same-sex relations, men are more likely to be
circumcised.
In the handful of documented cases on African women’s same-sex sex-
uality, those societies are characterized by predominant female involve-
ment in production and patrilineal inheritance. The editors include two
chapters focused on women-women relationships, as well as many ref-
erences to studies and stories about same-sex patterns among women,
despite the dearth of information on the subject.
Especially for anthropologists and sociologists interested in cross-
cultural sexuality, and anyone wishing to learn more about African cul-
ture, Boy-Wives and Female Husbands is a superb collection of primary
research articles and literature review essays on the organization of homo-
sexuality and the complexities of same-sex patterns. It is a book that not
only educates us about how sexuality is defined and organized in Africa,
but as such books often do, it also informs us about our own Western
notions of sexuality and attitudes toward same-sex sexual identity and
behavior.

Marriage in a Culture of Divorce. By Karla B. Hackstaff. Philadelphia:

Temple University Press, 1999. Pp. x1289. $59.50 (cloth); $22.95 (paper).

Joseph Hopper
University of Chicago

My thought about this book after reading the title was that Hackstaff
has it backward. It always surprises me that despite nearly everyone in

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