The Secret
Love, Marriage, and HIV
Published on 14. February 2010
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-0-8265-1683-1 (ISBN)
Description
For many women around the world, their greatest risk of HIV infection comes from having sex with the very person with whom they are supposed to have sex: their spouse. ""The Secret"" situates marital HIV risk within a broader exploration of marital and extramarital sexuality in five diverse settings: Mexico, Nigeria, Uganda, Vietnam, and Papua New Guinea. In these settings, the authors write, extramarital sex is an officially secret but actually widespread (and widely acknowledged) social practice, rather than something men do because their bodies demand it and women can't stop them. Drawing on research conducted as part of an innovative comparative ethnographic study, and modeling a novel approach to collaborative anthropological scholarship, the authors show extramarital sex to be a fundamental aspect of gendered social organization. Through theoretically sophisticated yet lucid writing and vivid ethnographic description, drawing on rich data from the marital case studies conducted by research teams in each country, they trace how extramarital opportunity structures, sexual geographies, and concerns about social risk facilitate men's participation in extramarital sex. Also documented throughout is the collision between traditional ways and the new practices of romantic companionate marriage.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Tennessee
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
34 b&w illustrations, index, bibliography
Dimensions
Height: 242 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
622 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8265-1683-1 (9780826516831)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jennifer S. Hirsch, Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, is the author of A Courtship after Marriage: Sexuality and Love in Mexican Transnational Families and co-editor of two recent volumes on the comparative anthropology of love. Holly Wardlow, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto, is the author of Wayward Women: Sexuality and Agency in a New Guinea Society. Daniel Jordan Smith, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Associate Director of the Population Studies and Training Center at Brown University, is the author of A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria. Harriet M. Phinney is a lecturer at Seattle University. Shanti Parikh is Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis. Constance A. Nathanson, Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences and Professor of Population and Family Health in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, is the author of Disease Prevention as Social Change and Dangerous Passage: The Social Control of Sexuality in Women's Adolescence.
Content
Introduction; From Cultural Traits to Global Processes: Methods for a Critical Comparative Ethnography; The Geography of Desire: Social Space, Sexual Projects, and the Organization of Extramarital Sex in Rural Mexico; Gender Inequality, Infidelity, and the Social Risks of Modern Marriage in Nigeria; "Eaten One's Fill and All Stirred Up": Doi Moi and the Re-Configuration of Masculine Sexual Risk and Men's Extramarital Sex in Vietnam; "Whip Him in the Head with a Stick!": Marriage, Male Infidelity, and Female Confrontation among the Huli; Going Public: Rethinking Monogamy, Infidelity, and Marriage in Southeastern Uganda; Conclusion.