Author Description

The dynamics of marriage and partnership-formation in Africa is a perennially lively and interesting subject. This rich and original volume, based on careful field research and data analysis, is a valuable source of information on this diverse and rapidly changing domain. Creatingmethodological and analytical strategies that effectively link anthropology and demography, the papers argue that anthropological insights are crucial to studies of marriage in Africa and its relationship to demographic events such as fertility, divorce, and child mortality. A primary theme of thisvolume is the fluidity of marriage and partnership-formation in African societies. The contributors conclude that marriage is a continuous process lasting several years, and recognize that individuals use and manipulate rules, rather than conform to fixed categories, and that this can be very usefulfor studying the demography of marriage in Africa.