“For the Colonel’s Lady and Judy O’Grady Are Sisters under Their Skins”

This chapter explores how gender relationships were mediated through the prisms of class and race in colonial Natal. More specifically, it asks how Natal's colonial elite aligned the military concepts of hierarchy and deference within the shaping of gender relations that were designed to underpin assumptions of class, caste, and race within the colonial social structure. It explains how gender issues in the Natal context were closely intertwined with class and racial issues in unexpected ways. In particular, it considers the intersections of class, gender, and agency in marriage alliances between officers of the garrison and women of the colonial elite. It also examines issues surrounding prostitution as well as the early development of feminized institutions and their relationship to the garrison of Fort Napier.