Full Description
Lorelle D. Semley explores the historical and political meanings of motherhood in West Africa and beyond, showing that the roles of women were far more complicated than previously thought. While in Kétu, Bénin, Semley discovered that women were treasurers, advisors, ritual specialists, and colonial agents in addition to their more familiar roles as queens, wives, and sisters. These women with special influence made it difficult for the French and others to enforce an ideal of subordinate women. As she traces how women gained prominence, Semley makes clear why powerful mother figures still exist in the symbols and rituals of everyday practices.
Contents
Preface. "You Must Be From Here": An Intellectual and Personal Journey
Acknowledgments
Note on Orthography and Language
Prologue. "Mother is gold, father is glass": Power and Vulnerability in Atlantic Africa
1. Founding Fathers and Metaphorical Mothers: History, Myth, and the Making of a Kingdom
2. How Kings Lost Their Mothers: Politics of the Atlantic Slave Trade
3. Giving Away Kétu's Secret: Wives on the Eve of War
4. "Where women really matter": The "Queens" of Kétu and the Challenge to French Imperialism
5. "Without family . . . there is no true colonization": Perspectives on Marriage
6. "The Opening of the Eyes": The Politics of Manhood on the Eve of Independence
7. Mothers and Fathers of an Atlantic World
Epilogue. A Rebirth of "Public Mothers" and Kings
Essay on Sources and Methodology
Notes
Bibliography
Index
