To Comply or Defy: Women, Elders, and Marriage in Zanzibar
(University of Nevada, Reno)
Based on data collected from ethnographic research in Zanzibar, this paper examines how people understand parental and filial rights and duties according to both Islamic law and local norms, and how and when they assert such rights in court and out. Although there is a strong norm of daughters adhering to elders’ authority in marriage, it does not go unchallenged: parental authority in marital negotiations is critiqued and sometimes contested using a discourse of rights. This paper examines court cases in which young women opened claims in court to ask the kadhi, Islamic judge, to give permission for them to marry men of their choice. In all cases, the women sought to supersede their fathers’ or guardians refusals to marry them off. By looking at these cases in conjunction with data from out-of-court interviews and participant-observation, the paper illuminates the way in which adult children and parents draw on understandings of Islamic family law vis-à-vis local cultural ideals of parenting and relatedness in court activity.