This volume reveals that individuals in Amazonian cultures often disregard or reinterpret the marriage rules of their societies—rules that anthropologists previously thought reflected practice. It is the first book to consider not just what the rules are but how people in these societies negotiate, manipulate, and break them in choosing whom to marry.

Ethnographic case studies drawn on previously unpublished material from well-known indigenous cultures show that the peoples of lowland South America select spouses to meet their economic and political goals, their social aspirations, and their emotional desires. Contributors also look at how globalization and modernization are changing ancestral norms and values. This volume is a richly diverse portrayal of agency and individual choice alongside normative kinship and marriage systems in a region that has long been central to anthropological studies of indigenous life.