Militarizing Marriage: West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire (War and Militarism in African History)

"By prioritizing women and conjugality in the historiography of African colonial soldiers, Militarizing Marriage historicizes how the subjugation of women was indispensable to military conquest and colonial rule across French Empire"-- Provided by publisher Following tirailleurs sénégalais’ deployments in West Africa, Congo, Madagascar, North Africa, Syria-Lebanon, Vietnam, and Algeria from the 1880s to 1962, Militarizing Marriage historicizes how African servicemen advanced conjugal strategies with women at home and abroad. Sarah J. Zimmerman examines the evolution of women’s conjugal relationships with West African colonial soldiers to show how the sexuality, gender, and exploitation of women were fundamental to the violent colonial expansion and the everyday operation of colonial rule in modern French Empire. These conjugal behaviors became military marital traditions that normalized the intimate manifestation of colonial power in social reproduction across the empire. Soldiers’ cross-colonial and interracial households formed at the intersection of race and sexuality outside the colonizer/colonized binary. Militarizing Marriage uses contemporary feminist scholarship on militarism and violence to portray how the subjugation of women was indispensable to military conquest and colonial rule. Inhaltsverzeichnis: Introduction. French African Soldiers and Female Conjugal Partners in Colonial Militarism -- Marrying into the Military: Colonization, Emancipation, and Martial Community in West Africa, 1880-1900 -- Colonial Conquest "en Famille": African Military Households in Congo and Madagascar, 1880-1905 -- Mesdames Tirailleurs and Black Villages: Trans-Saharan Experiences in the Conquest of Morocco, 1908-18 -- Domestic Affairs in the Great War: Legal Plurality, Citizenship, and Family Benefits, 1914-18 -- Challenging Colonial Order: Long-Distance, Interracial, and Cross-Colonial Conjugal Relationships, 1918-46 -- Afro-Vietnamese Military Households in French Indochina and West Africa, 1930-56 -- Epilogue. Decolonization, Algeria, and Legacies Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction 1: Marrying into the Military 2: Colonial Conquest “en Famille” 3: Mesdames Tirailleurs and Black Villages 4: Domestic Affairs in the Great War 5: Challenging Colonial Order 6: Afro-Vietnamese Military Households in French Indochina and West Africa, 1930–56 Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index