Waithood

Marcia C. Inhorn is William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at Yale University, where she is the Chair of the Council on Middle East Studies. A specialist on Middle East gender, religion, and reproductive health issues, she is the author of six award-winning books, including her most recent, America’s Arab Refugees: Vulnerability and Health on the Margins (Stanford, 2018).

List of Figures



Introduction: Waithood: Gender, Education, and Global Delays in Marriage and Childbearing

Nancy J. Smith-Hefner and Marcia C. Inhorn



Part I: Waithood, Statehood, and the Struggle for Dignity



Chapter 1. Youth, Economics, and the Politics of Waithood: The Struggle for Dignity in the Middle East and North Africa

Diane Singerman



Chapter 2. “Trusting is a Dicey Affair”: Muslim Youth, Gender Relations, and Future-Making in Southwestern Uganda

Dorothea E. Schulz



Chapter 3. Waiting at the Fada: Young Men, “Tea Circles,” and Delayed Adulthood in Niger

Adeline Masquelier



Chapter 4. Emergent Waithood: Institutions and Marriage Delays among Mayan Women in Guatemala

Nicole S. Berry



Part II: Gender, Education, and the Aspiration for Autonomy



Chapter 5. Active Waithood: Youthmen, Fatherhood, and Men’s Educational Aspirations in Sierra Leone

Kristen E. McLean



Chapter 6. “Giving Oneself Time”: Marriage and Motherhood in Urban Rwanda

Aalyia Feroz Ali Sadruddin



Chapter 7. Tactics of Marriage Delay in China: Education, Rural-to-Urban Migration, and “Leftover Women”

Zachary M. Howlett



Chapter 8. Too Educated to Marry? Muslim Women and Extended Singlehood in Indonesia

Nancy J. Smith-Hefner



Part III: Delayed Marriage and the Meanings of Singlehood



Chapter 9. Conjugal Conundrums: Conversion and Marriage Delay in the Contemporary Caribbean

Brendan Jamal Thornton



Chapter 10. Between Cynicism and Idealism: Voluntary Waithood in Iran

Mehrdad Babadi



Chapter 11. Refusing to Settle: Migration among Single Professional Women in Jordan

Fida Adely



Chapter 12. Never-Married Women in India: Gendered Life Courses, Desires, and Identities in Flux

Sarah Lamb



Part IV: Delayed Childbearing and the Quest for Motherhood



Chapter 13. Blamed for Delay: French Norms and Practices of ART in the Context of Increasing Age-Related Female Infertility

Manon Vialle



Chapter 14. Waiting Too Long to Mother: Involuntary Childlessness and Assisted Reproduction in Contemporary Spain

Beatriz San Román



Chapter 15. The Egg Freezing Revolution? Gender, Education, and Reproductive Waithood in America

Marcia C. Inhorn



Conclusion: Waithood in the Twenty-First Century

Marcia C. Inhorn and Nancy J. Smith-Hefner



Index