‘At least I am married’: Muslim–Christian marriage and gender in southwest Nigeria

Abstract

This article explores religious coexistence among the Yoruba of southwest Nigeria. It focuses on interfaith marriages, frequent especially between Muslim men and Christian women, as a practice that brings Islam and Christianity into a mutually productive relationship. The article explores the tension between the general understanding that interfaith marriage is a positive anchor of Muslim–Christian relations and the widespread individual scepticism towards such marriages. Rooted in distinct discourses, Muslim and Christian attitudes to interfaith marriage have undergone changes along different trajectories since the 1980s. At the same time, they share a ‘family resemblance’ because members of both religions emphasise the importance of marriage and its unequally gendered nature. The unequal and asymmetric relationships between the two religions constitute part of a wider religious field, where the shared belief in the importance of conjugality is central to the gendered social order. Thus, even though Muslim–Christian marriages are often understood as problematic, they are still seen as less problematic than the failure to marry.

Above and beyond social boundaries: Everyday life of Mixed Muslim–non-Muslim families in contemporary societies Au-delà des frontières sociales : le vécu des familles mixtes musulmanes-non-musulmanes dans les sociétés contemporaines

“…Both in Lebanon and Israel, sectarianism remains the easiest way to talk about difference mainly because of experiences of war, political violence, and spatial segregation. Other studies on countries marked by a long cohabitation between Muslims and non-Muslims have been conducted in sub-Saharan countries (Crespin-Boucaud, 2020; Igundunasse and Fatunji, 2015; Nolte, 2020), the countries of the former Yugoslavia (Mrdjen and Bahnik, 2018), or India (Heitmeyer, 2016; Wadhwa, 2019). With the exception of some authors who examine the lives of young adults growing up in inter-religious families (Wadhwa, 2019), most of these authors focus on the couples.…”

“…Tant au Liban qu’en Israël, le sectarisme reste la manière la plus commune pour évoquer cette différence et ce, en raison des expériences de guerre, des actes de violence politique et de la ségrégation spatiale. D’autres recherches réalisées dans des pays marqués par une longue cohabitation entre les populations musulmanes et non-musulmanes ont été menées dans les pays subsahariens (Crespin-Boucaud, 2020; Igundunasse and Fatunji, 2015; Nolte, 2020), les pays de l’ex-Yougoslavie (Mrdjen and Bahnik, 2018) ou l’Inde (Heitmeyer, 2016; Wadhwa, 2019). La plupart des chercheurs se concentrent sur l’études des couples, hormis quelques-uns qui se focalisent sur l’étude des conditions de vie des jeunes adultes qui grandissent dans des familles interreligieuses (Wadhwa, 2019).…”

“…In the Moroccan context, the links between colonization and interracial relationships (Phipps, 2022) and between tourism and mixed unions (Cauvin Verner, 2016) have been revealed and have provided opportunities to explore women's sexuality. The limited research on mixed individuals raised in Muslim-majority countries analyzes racial boundaries in relation to social perception (Therrien, 2020a) and identity construction (Gilliéron, 2022b;Tanu, 2019) and Fatunji, 2015;Nolte, 2020), les pays de l'ex-Yougoslavie (Mrdjen and Bahnik, 2018) ou l'Inde (Heitmeyer, 2016;Wadhwa, 2019). La plupart des chercheurs se concentrent sur l'études des couples, hormis quelques-uns qui se focalisent sur l'étude des conditions de vie des jeunes adultes qui grandissent dans des familles interreligieuses (Wadhwa, 2019).…”

‘Not as single spies’: a review of European Social Anthropology 2020

“…Echoing Candea (2019), they argue that the full comparative potential that the discipline of anthropology has to offer remains unexplored. In a rich diversity of ethnographic observation, the special issue's contributors problematise the comparative situations of upwardly mobile believers in the United Kingdom and Kenya (Fesenmyer 2020) and Nigeria (Janson 2020); others analyse intra-Muslim difference manifest among practitioners of Islam mondain, or 'lived' Islam in India and Nigeria (Osella and Soares 2020), while further 'common ground' is established between Christian and Muslim communities in studies of joint marriage in Yorubaland (Nolte 2020) and of a form of mimetic prayer practised by a syncretic religious group in Guinea-Bissau (Sarró and Temudo 2020). A final article (Hausner 2020) identifies the hazard of counter-cultural (essentially secular) ritual, masquerading as religion, and how the nature of categories and boundaries, epistemic and otherwise, can become problematised in the field.…”

Regulating Religious Coexistence

“…Similarly, Mustapha and Ehrhardt (2018) emphasize that violent conflicts between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria can only be understood in relation to earlier and ongoing intra-Muslim competition. Finally, the recent work of Insa Nolte explores how practices of intermarriage between Muslims and Christians shape the largely peaceful modes of religious coexistence among the Yoruba (Nolte 2019;cf. Nolte and Akinjobi 2017).…”