. ‘African Sexuality’/Sexuality in Africa: Tales and Silences

specific emphasis on the mother/child matri-centric unit (Amadiume 1987) even in patrilineal societies. Another feature of polygynous households (in a patrilineal environment) is the collaboration of co-wives. Especially in a place like southern Mozambique, where many men are away for long periods as labour migrants, it will be the women left on the land—two or three co-wives together, or mother — in-law/daughter(s)-in-law—who run the show. This leads directly on to the au­thor’s next characteristic: separation of the world of women from the world of men.