South African customary law should be understood from the perspective of dissonance between the past and the present.
A Zulu household, from an 1895 book called The Colony of Natal: An Official Illustrated Handbook and Railway Guide.
J Causton and Sons /University of California Libraries/ Flickr
A new history book shows how entanglements of race, gender, class and sexuality in South Africa flow from the moral contradictions of the settler colonial state.
South African President Jacob Zuma and Tobeka Madiba, his fifth wife, celebrate their traditional wedding with a dance.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Both South Africa’s courts and its legislature have failed to do their bit in creating a culturally diverse society.
South Africa is taking a tough stance against the practice of abducting and forcing young girls into marriage that’s still rife in some parts of the country.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
The reasons for the phenomenon of child marriage are complex and include the fact that in customary law, marriageable age was never reckoned as an actual number but depended on puberty.