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Free keywords:
Ethiopia, East Africa, marriage, local history, anthropology, kingdoms and states.
Abstract:
This article deals with marriage as mobilized by the Ethiopian Empire as part of its consoli-dation processes after 1941. It particularly concentrates on post-liberation anxiety andhow the Ethiopian Empire envisioned tackling this disquiet by reforming marriage.Within the context of (re)building the empire, policies, laws, and discourses around mon-ogamous marriage instilled normative ideas to produce the imperial subjects—procre-ative and productive—that a modernizing empire required. Sex was articulated withinthe confines of a heterosexual union, not only as a legitimate act but also as a responsi-bility of couples who were accountable for the consolidation of the empire. Sexual rela-tions out of marriage were condemned as a source of degeneracy and the ensuingdanger that confronted the empire. New laws were introduced to legislate sex to tacklethe unease the empire felt about non-normative sex and associated pleasure(s). Whatstarted out as a battle against the Italian legacy continued more forcefully in the 1950sand 1960s with the rise of‘new problems’that educated young women and menposed. The article relies on a range of sources such as policy, legal, religious, and traveldocuments; newspapers; and novels, as well as self-help books produced between the1940s and 1960s.
