The Polygamy Question: Missions, Marriage, and Assimilation
Polygamy was a vexed question for missionaries in the Northern Territory of Australia. In the mid twentieth century, Christian missions of various denominations worked with the Australian Commonwealth Government to achieve a policy of assimilating Aboriginal people into white Australian culture. Yet...
| Published in: | Journal of religious history |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
[2019]
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| In: |
Journal of religious history
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Nordaustralien
/ Mission
/ Marriage
/ Polygamy
/ Assimilation (Sociology)
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| RelBib Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion CH Christianity and Society KBS Australia; Oceania RJ Mission; missiology |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Polygamy was a vexed question for missionaries in the Northern Territory of Australia. In the mid twentieth century, Christian missions of various denominations worked with the Australian Commonwealth Government to achieve a policy of assimilating Aboriginal people into white Australian culture. Yet there was little consensus as to how this assimilation policy could or should be applied to Aboriginal marriages. This article demonstrates that the issue of polygamy exposed divisions between church and state as well as among Christian denominations over their understandings of marriage. These differences stemmed from differing spiritual visions of assimilation in Australia. The conflicts over marriage in the Northern Territory, therefore, reveal that assimilation, and settler-colonialism more broadly, operated on a religious plane as Aboriginal people, missionaries, and bureaucrats engaged in a spiritual contest over what represented a legitimate and acceptable marriage in that land. |
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| ISSN: | 1467-9809 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religious history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/1467-9809.12585 |