Marriage in African Tribes

About this book

Farag Ahmed Farag enters the social worlds of African communities through their marriage customs, asking readers to look beyond labels such as strange or primitive. Bridewealth, symbolic abduction, exchange marriage, ancestry, slavery, and women's authority are examined as parts of living systems of meaning. Drawing on examples including Maasai and Dogon traditions, the book combines anthropological observation with an accessible narrative voice. It considers how ritual links family, survival, spirituality, and communal identity, while resisting an exoticizing gaze. The result is an invitation to rethink familiar assumptions about love, kinship, sacrifice, and the persistence of inherited practice under the pressure of globalization.