Military Kinship, Inc.: patronage, inter-ethnic marriages and social classes in South Sudan

This article analyses marital practices in South Sudan's second civil war and its aftermath. It focuses on inter-ethnic kinship military ties sealed through the patronage of marriage and through inter-ethnic marriages. It argues that the marriage market became part of the broader circuit of predation by different armed groups. Inter-ethnic marriages varied between different ethnic groups and served different goals. They were symptomatic of changing and deteriorating ethnic dynamics within the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and with the local population. Ordinary civilians attempted to resist increased inequalities on the marriage market, used by the military elite as a tool for class consolidation.