This chapter challenges assumptions about the universalist traditions of African sexuality, by examining what is known about the sexual behaviour of Ankole, Buganda, and Buhaya before colonial rule. It demonstrates that while some similarities existed, this small geographical region was characterized in regard to sexuality and reproduction more by the diversity of its attitudes and practices in relation to pre-marital sexuality and pregnancy, wife-sharing, legitimate and illegitimate extra-marital sex, ritualized sex, the duration of breastfeeding, and ideal family size. These ethnic differences were shaped by locally distinct patterns of clanship, inheritance, marriage, and moral politics.
