ABSTRACT
The Society for Oversea Settlement of British Women granted free passage to “suitable” single women who wanted to start a new life elsewhere in the British Empire. However, most of the women who emigrated before World War I preferred other destinations than East and Central Africa. Given the paucity of European women, many single European men in East and Central Africa had no one to date and some inevitably chose to engage in liaisons with African women. The policing of European-African racial boundaries in East and Central Africa involved laws that in practice prevented marriage between European men and African women. When conditions improved and more European women immigrated to East and Central African territories, their presence improved the marriage market but at the same time created a new “problem,” namely their personal safety and the risk of being sexually assaulted by African men. European men believed that European women needed protection from sexual assaults by African men.
