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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | From 'Mariage a la mode' to Weddings at Town Hall: Marriage, Colonialism and Mixed-Race Society in Nineteenth-Century Senegal |
Author: | Jones, Hilary |
Year: | 2005 |
Periodical: | International Journal of African Historical Studies |
Volume: | 38 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 27-48 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Senegal France |
Subjects: | Creoles colonialism marriage racially mixed persons History and Exploration Ethnic and Race Relations Women's Issues Law, Human Rights and Violence Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Historical/Biographical Cultural Roles Marital Relations and Nuptiality Law, Legal Issues, and Human Rights |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/40036462 |
Abstract: | In the late 17th and 18th centuries, African and Afro-European women called 'signares' entered into temporary marital unions with European merchants and officials stationed on the island of Saint Louis (Senegal). This marriage practice was known in French as 'mariage à la mode du pays'. By the establishment of Third Republic France in 1870, Senegal's 'mulatto' or 'métis' population no longer followed the marital practices of their foremothers but rather insisted on marital unions sanctioned by the Catholic Church and considered legal according to French civil law. How and why did men and women of mixed racial ancestry coming of age in late 19th-century Senegal develop new marriage strategies? Analysis of private family genealogies, the civil registry for marriages and births, and marriage and baptism records from the Saint Louis Parish provide a window into the interior lives of men and women of mixed racial ancestry in colonial Senegal. The examination of these family histories shows that Senegal's mixed-race population used the institution of marriage to consolidate their wealth, acquire symbolic capital, and shore up their position as citizens of the Republic as opposed to subjects of colonial Senegal. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |