Gender of Piety

Family, Faith, and Colonial Rule in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe

Wendy Urban-Mead

 

The book is available in North America, not in Zimbabwe.

Synopsis

The Gender of Piety is an intimate history of the Brethren in Christ Church in Zimbabwe, or BICC, as related through six individual life histories that extend from the early colonial years through the first decade after independence. Taken together, these six lives show how men and women of the BICC experienced and sequenced their piety in different ways. Women usually remained tied to the church throughout their lives, while men often had a more strained relationship with it.

Review

Through close examination, Wendy Urban-Mead illuminates the gendered connections of individual women and men to the Brethren in Christ Church in Zimbabwe. The Gender of Piety is a major contribution to studies of family, church, and gender history in Africa. —Kathleen Sheldon, UCLA Center for the Study of Women

Author

Wendy Urban-Mead is an associate professor of history at the Master of Arts in Teaching Program at Bard College in upstate New York. She is co-editor of Social Sciences and Missions.