In this classic work, Germaine Tillion argues that the phenomenon of men killing their daughters, sisters, and wives over matters of sexual honor is not an aberration specific to Islam. Rather, it is part of a pagan Mediterranean legacy of marriage between first cousins that still affects both modern Christian and Muslim societies. Tillion charts the rise of that unique Mediterranean social innovation she calls the “Republic of Cousins.”
Germaine Tillion, former director of studies of the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, is an anthropologist with unrivaled knowledge of nomads and settled agriculturalists in North Africa.