ISBN 92-808-0922-9 1997, 224 pages US$34.95, paper

This compelling study of family, kinship, and gender in South and South-East Asia breaks new grounds in its broad geographical coverage and the extensive bibliography that closes the work. It is unique too in its premise that in order to understand gender it is necessary to understand the structural and cultural dimensions of a kinship system. The author's investigation of gender and kinship traces a grand arc from Pakistan to the Philippines, and includes populations in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, and Thailand. She compares Hindus, Muslims, Christians of India, high-caste Parbatiya Hindus and Newars of Nepal, Muslims of Bangladesh and Pakistan, bilateral Malay Muslims of Peninsular Malaysia, the bilateral Javanese and matrilineal Minangkabau of western Sumatra, the Buddhist Thai, and lowland Christian Filipinos.