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'THESE LAWS SHOULD BE MADE BY US': CUSTOMARY MARRIAGE LAW, CODIFICATION AND POLITICAL AUTHORITY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY COLONIAL GABON.
- Source :
- Journal of African History; 2008, Vol. 49 Issue 2, p217-240, 24p
- Publication Year :
- 2008
-
Abstract
- This article analyzes the multiple and failed efforts to codify customary marriage law over the course of the twentieth century in colonial Gabon. It argues that these efforts illuminate the discursive arenas in which the colonial state, the church and African political leaders struggled to demarcate power and control over wealth-in-women. In a time of sociopolitical crisis and change state, chiefs and other elite African men all become involved in attempts to conceptualize, codify and administer customary marriage law. The contested process of codification reveals disjunctures in the articulation of male political authority in colonial Gabon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00218537
- Volume :
- 49
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Journal of African History
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 35110446
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853708003617