Includes bibliographical references (pages 367-391) and index.

1. Schoolgirls and Women Teachers: Colonial Education and the Shifting Boundaries between Girls and Women in Zanzibar / Corrie Decker -- 2. The Value of a Marriage: Missionaries, Ex-slaves, and the Legal Debates over Marriage in Colonial Pemba Island / Elisabeth McMahon -- 3. Two Weddings in Northern Mafia: Changes in Women's Lives since the 1960s / Pat Caplan -- 4. Pleasure and Danger: Muslim Views on Sex and Gender in Zanzibar / Nadine Beckmann -- 5. Sex and School on the Southern Swahili Coast: Adolescent Sexuality in the Context of Expanding Education in Rural Mtwara, Tanzania / Meghan Halley -- 6. Learning to Use Swahili Profanity and Sacred Speech: The Embodied Socialization of a Muslim Bride in Zanzibar Town / Katrina Daly Thompson -- 7. Pleasure and Prohibitions: Reflections on Gender, Knowledge, and Sexuality in Zanzibar Town / Kjersti Larsen -- 8. Unsuitable Husbands: Allegations of Impotence in Zanzibari Divorce Suits / Erin E. Stiles -- 9. Forming and Performing Swahili Manhood: Wedding Rituals of a Groom in Lamu Town / Rebecca Gearhart -- 10. Spirit Possession and Masculinity in Swahili Society / Linda L. Giles -- 11. Being a Good Muslim Man: Modern Aspirations and Polygynous Intentions in a Swahili Muslim Village / Susi Krehbiel Keefe -- Afterword: Understanding Gendered Lives through Intimate and Global Perspectives / Susan F. Hirsch -- Glossary -- References -- Contributors -- Index.

"Muslim communities throughout the Indian Ocean have long questioned what it means to be a "good Muslim." Much recent scholarship on Islam in the Indian Ocean considers debates among Muslims about authenticity, authority, and propriety. Despite the centrality of this topic within studies of Indian Ocean, African, and other Muslim communities, little of the existing scholarship has addressed such debates in relation to women, gender, or sexuality. Yet women are deeply involved with ideas about what it means to be a "good Muslim." In Gendered Lives in the Western Indian Ocean, anthropologists, historians, linguists, and gender studies scholars examine Islam, sexuality, gender, and marriage on the Swahili coast and elsewhere in the Indian Ocean. The book examines diverse sites of empowerment, contradiction, and resistance affecting cultural norms, Islam and ideas of Islamic authenticity, gender expectations, ideologies of modernity, and British education. The book's attention to both masculinity and femininity, broad examination of the transnational space of the Swahili coast, and inclusion of research on non-Swahili groups on the East African coast makes it a unique and indispensable resource"-- Provided by publisher.