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Title: |
The Importance of Being Monogamous |
| Sub-title: |
Marriage and Nation Building in Western Canada to 1915 |
Search Result:
| By (author): |
Sarah Carter |
| ISBN10-13: |
0888644906 : 9780888644909 |
| Illustrations: |
b/w photos |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Size: |
1x1mm |
| Pages: |
400 |
| Weight: |
.580 Kg. |
| Published: |
The University of Alberta Press - April 2008 |
| List Price: |
29.99 Pounds Sterling |
| Availability: |
In Stock
Qty Available: 5 |
| Subjects: |
Social & cultural history : Indigenous peoples : Sociology: family & relationships : Canada |
| "The Importance of Being Monogamous revises what we know about marriage and the gendered politics of the late nineteenth century. [It] shifts our understanding of Aboriginal history during [these] critical years and brings together the fields of Indigenous and migrant history in new and important ways." Adele Perry, Associate Professor of History, University of Manitoba Sarah Carter provides a detailed description of marriage as a diverse social institution in nineteenth-century Western Canada. She charts the ascendancy of Christian, lifelong, heterosexual, monogamous marriage as an instrument to shape and institutionalize the gender order as the foundation of this new region of the nation. It took great effort to impose the monogamous model of marriage on a varied population of Aboriginal people and newcomers such as the Mormons, each with their own definitions of marriage, including polygamy and flexible attitudes toward divorce. The work concludes with an explanation of the negative social consequences for women, particularly Aboriginal women, that arose as a result of the imposition of monogamous marriage. Sarah Carter, F.R.S.C., is H.M. Tory Chair and Professor in the Department of History and Classics, and the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. She is a specialist in the history of Western Canada and is the author of Aboriginal People and Colonizers of Western Canada to 1900, Capturing Women, and Lost Harvests. Sarah Carter was awarded the Jensen-Miller Prize by the Coalition for Women's History for the best article published in 2006 in the field of women and gender in the trans-Mississippi West. |
| Table of Contents: |
| Creating, Challenging, Imposing, and Defending the Marriage "Fortress"; Customs Not in Common; Making Newcomers to Western Canada Monogamous; "A Striking Contrast... Where Perpetuity of Union and Exclusiveness is Not a Rule, at Least Not a Strict Rule"; The 1886 "Traffic in Indian Girls" Panic and the Foundation of the Federal Approach to Aboriginal Marriage and Divorce; Creating "Semi-Widows" and "Supernumerary Wives"; "Undigested, Conflicting and Inharmonious"; Index. |
| Awards / Prizes: |
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AAUP Book, Jacket & Journal Show - Jackets & Covers
2009
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Alberta Book Awards - Scholarly Book of the Year
2009
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Margaret McWilliams Competition - Margaret McWilliams Award, Scholarly Book
2008
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| Reviews: |
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"A specialist in the history of western Canada, Carter (history and classics, and native studies, U. of Alberta-Edmonton) does not have to reach very far, or very far back, to demonstrate that The Traditional Family fantasized by 21st-century neo-cons is not very old, and has never come close to ubiquitous. The notion of an eternal, monogamous marriage had more to do with nation building than with personal relationships, she finds, and was contested in just about every available arena when the elite tried to impose it during the late 19th century. Distributed in the US by Michigan State University Press." Book News, Inc., November 2008
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"Varied forms of marriage predominated in the interracial fur-trade society before Canada acquired the North-West Territories and began its colonial occupation of the land after 1870. A richly complex society existed in the Canadian West before 1870. When the Dominion of Canada gained the Northwest, it felt the need to impose its own vision on what seemed a frighteningly expansive and strange environment. The many single men, and some single women, moving west posed a further threat to the unified Anglo-Canadian vision of family farms spreading to the western horizon. The example of the United States, with its looser divorce laws and rambunctious approach to western expansion, posed another threat. ... The Importance of Being Monogamous provides a fascinating account of how, especially between 1870 and 1915, when patriotic British imperial fervour saw the dominant entrenchment of the new order, the complex social order based on aboriginal and Métis models was finally eclipsed. Carter uses government records, advice books, fiction, missionary statements, and a broad range of sources to indicate how this transformation was articulated by those imposing it during a crucial period of our history. Land surveys, homestead regulations, and other official instruments were used to impose the monogamous model, frequently at the expense of women, many of whom were left destitute to raise their children by deserting husbands who could not be divorced. The role of the Indian Affairs Department also receives a close examination in this book, painting a discouraging picture of how it became the means of attempting to invade aboriginal cultures. ... Sarah Carter's book forms an important chapter in the story of Western Canada's transformation." Ken Tingley, Edmonton Journal, Dec. 7, 2008
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"This sophisticated and engaging book has much to offer a number of scholarly areas, including Canadian history, gender studies, and political and legal studies. Working from a massive bedrock of diverse primary materials, Sarah Carter challenges assumptions about the institution of marriage, revealing its complexities and importance in the colonial past. In command of a multidisciplinary secondary literature, including legal studies and anthropology, her immediate focus is on western Canada, defined as the three prairie provinces, with particular focus on the region of southern Alberta....[The book] draws upon an excellent command of legal history, the depth and breadth of knowledge it displays on the topic is truly impressive, and it is written with a measured, yet passionate voice. It makes excellent use of photographs, and the text's handsome layout makes for ease of reading. It is an important study that opens up multiple areas for further research; in particular, exploration of the limits of the law to control the intimate histories of people going about their everyday lives." Katie Pickles, University of Canterbury, BC Studies, Winter 2008/09
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"The Importance of Being Monogamous is one of those books that make you wonder why its subject has not been the focus of a major study until now... Using Missionary publications, newspapers, travelers' accounts, government circulars and correspondence, and legal decisions, Sarah Carter explores how Christian, monogamous, heterosexual marriage was imposed on Aboriginals and Mormons in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Western Canada as part of the federal government's nation-building agenda. ... Indeed, before the late nineteenth-century monogamous marriage was not a foregone conclusion; it was a deliberate choice on the part of white, Christian, middle-class politicians, government officials, and reformers to make it the foundation for a new nation. ... Carter explores in more detail Plains Aboriginals' marriage customs as well the imposition of the monogamous model and its implications for women. Pointing to a persistent bias among scholars and legal experts, she argues convincingly that the term "marriage" should also apply to the diverse forms of unions found in Aboriginal societies in Western Canada. ... The Importance of Being Monogamous is a fine contribution to the study of British imperialism and colonialism and its reproduction in the Canadian context." - Melanie Brunet, College universitaire de Saint-Boniface, H-Canada, Dec. 2008
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"This is too important a book to be confined to the libraries of scholars, even though they may be the principal targets of a university publisher. Sarah Carter, professor of history and native studies at the University of Alberta, sets out to show the function of monogamy, which some termed the 'fortress of marriage,' in incorporating Western Canada into the Dominion of Canada. In the process she depicts two major consequences, seemingly more relevant to race and gender status than nation building: the manipulation of First Nations and the reduction of the status of women, notably those of First Nations.... It is profoundly depressing to contemplate the destructiveness of Euro- Canadian interference in the aboriginal cultures (including those of the Canadian West) in the late Victorian era. Prior to colonial times, marriage in aboriginal cultures, according to Carter's findings, was often rich in ceremony and spirituality....The Importance of Being Monogamous is a worthy example of history amplified and enriched." Ron Kirbyson, The Winnipeg Free Press, May 3, 2009
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"Historian Carter's study of marriage as a social institution in Western Canada seeks to destabilize the notion that monogamous unions are the ancient and unquestionable foundations of family-and thus community-life. Attempts by missionaries and the government to establish and reward monogamous marriage and punish alternative marriage brought these forces into conflict with Mormon settlers and with various First Nations. Harsh legislation also punished widows, single women, and wives deserted by their husbands. In an excellent chapter on Aboriginal marriage, Carter (Native Studies, University of Alberta) does a fine job of showing how the polygamy of some tribes was actually a source of freedom for women, in contrast to the strict laws governing marriage and divorce for white settlers. She examines the efforts of missionaries and officials to establish monogamous marriages for tribal people, in a belief that monogamy would elevate tribal women to the glorified status of white wives, many of whom were in a greater state of slavery within their marriages than Aboriginal women. This vast book is a thorough social and legal exploration into the settlement of Western Canada and the contested role that marriage played in establishing the nation." J. B. Edwards, Choice, May 2009
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