In this original synthesis on Melanesian scholarship, this book argues that gender relations have been a particular casualty of unexamined assumptions held by Western anthropologists and feminist scholars alike. The book treats with equal seriousness—and with equal good humor—the insights of Western social science, feminist politics, and ethnographic reporting, in order to rethink the representation of Melanesian social and cultural life. This makes this book one of the most sustained critiques of cross-cultural comparison that anthropology has seen, and one of its most spirited vindications.