Onions Are My Husband serves as a portal to the world of West African market women through the eyes of Gracia Clark. Ghana's massive Kumasi Central Market, which is described as one of the largest of its kind on the continent, is kept in motion by the thousands of women who handle the transactions that Clark began observing in 1978. In eleven chapters, Clark unravels the dynamics affecting the marketplace and the lives of women, providing historic accounts to understand how political relations, kinship relations, and marketplace relations shaped women's survival as traders. Clark's view is comprehensive as she additionally tackles issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and all other divides to help achieve her holistic representation, yet her attempt at covering all areas alienates the reader.From the start, Clark familiarizes the reader with the environment by providing a strikingly vivid image of Kumasi Central Market. The organization and regulation described here makes the precise layout of an ant colony seem inferior. After such a dizzying tour, the reader feels confident in how and when one should navigate the crowded paths filled with yams, tomatoes, and eager traders. Such information is vital, for Clark presents space as a theme that she takes great care to unfold. Passages describe the seasonal and gradual changes of space in the market, giving insight to power of certain commodities at any given time. Through her spatial analysis, the reader becomes aware of the resilience and ingenuity of the Asante woman. Space in Kumasi market is fluid, forcing traders to adapt quickly and with cunning if they wish to increase their capital. Here, the fascinating hierarchy of commodity groups uncoils to show the ohemma's, queen mothers, and the politics that surround their positions.On a more abstract level, Clark notes that time and space between women and their kin in place of spending more time on account of their husbands can ultimately limit their access to resources. Female traders' time in the home versus being physically stationed in the market in order to work to support their children and their children's educations presents the conflict of motherhood and wifehood to which Clark gives considerable attention.. Whether to describe power networks by identifying geographic regions within the market or by discussing how the interaction of neighboring stalls helps forge important, sustaining relationships, Clark's spatial analysis is both well-constructed and interesting.Clark's historical analysis proves no less meritorious than her spatial analysis. In brief, Clark elaborates on how a structure has sustained itself through famine and hardship for so long despite numerous attempts at government regulation using rich historical evidence. Her task was not simple, yet she is extremely thorough in her analyses. In her chapter entitled "Persistent Transformations," Clark logs a detailed history, "outlining confrontations from earlier centuries that established the basis for control of major material and social resources..." (83). Aside from providing rich historical analysis, Clark's research period's spanning over a decade into the 1990's alone allows one to trace historical effects. The reader benefits from a wide range of studies and sees transformations more clearly. Clark's having been able to personally witness and study the effects of time is invaluable. She cites an overall decline in traders' relative power in relation to "overall social formation" and dedicates a lot of space to fanning out this issue (402).Laced with various tables and charts, Clark undoubtedly supports her claims, but on the whole, the reader may feel as if her claims sometimes harbor a certain emptiness. By choosing not to incorporate other voices in her work, Clark leaves the reader that is often drawn to the genre of ethnography to hear some of the individual's account unsatisfied. Those searching for the Nisa of Kumasi marketplace women will find no solace here. For much of the book, the reader is inundated with statistics and conclusions, which often alienates the reader, and theory is rarely, if ever, accompanied by anecdotal interlude. As a result of the exclusion of the reader from having some idea of what was said during interviews, one is forced to take Clark's word for everything. which presenta problem.Before diving into the market, Clark describes her quest for "searching for a theoretical framework hospitable to this multi-faceted analysis" in her first chapter (26). Her analysis addresses gender, race, ethnicity, autonomy, and environment in relation to wage earning, marriage, education, technology, and various aspects of society. These subjects are paired with the themes of economics, politics, and local relationships to make for a complicated overview. An exhaustive list of themes explored might cause for praise or for skepticism, however. Some might wonder whether or not Clark undertook too ambitious an initiative in trying to leave no stone unturned. Or, on the other hand, others might flock to her work as an encyclopedic canon of the marketplace.Overall, Clark provides the reader with the tools necessary to understand the dynamics of marketplace survival for Asante women while providing historical transformation as another level of enlightenment for the reader. While the language style may not captivate the reader or the discussion evoke poignant sentiments, Onions Are My Husband is insightful and touching in its own regard. More than a decade's worth of knowledge is presented in a format that is both accessible and highly detailed. At the very least, the issues Clark raises merit the attention of anyone hoping to better understand the issues of gender in African society as well as the dynamic of local power structures, but the text most certainly warrants the attention of anyone seeking a work that is as close to a holistic text as any other ethnography making such a claim could possibly be.