Product DescriptionThis volume shows that slaves acquired by some ruling households were incorporated into patterns of kinship. Colonial abolitionist measures did not even try to release these slaves; they restructured ideologies of marriage and succession instead and eroded the status of slave-descended membersover time.Review"Chatterjee's study...offers new understanding of the place of the eunuch and the harem in the milieu of governance....[She] presents complex themes clearly and articulately. Her research in company and Indian records is deep and broad....her work is erudite and her arguments highlyplausible."--HistoryAbout the AuthorIndrani Chatterjee, Senior Fellow, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Calcutta.