Genre, coutumes et droit colonial au Soudan français (1918-1939)*

Rodet, Marie

doi:10.4000/etudesafricaines.8162

Cited by 14 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Due in part to racially charged notions of women as ‘beasts of burden’ or ‘exploited workers’ who must be saved from ‘barbaric’ African husbands, French officials across West Africa initially pressured judges to grant divorces (Lydon 1999; Roberts 2005: 131) 8 . At the same time, French officials worried that intervening in customary matters would threaten their alliances with the local elites on whom they relied to maintain their empire (Rodet 2007). Operational ambiguity therefore arose as these judges contended with the countervailing pressures to preserve custom and counter ‘repugnancy’ in the arena of divorce.…”

Section: Women and Legal Pluralism In The Gold Coast And Senegalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Senegal, debates about family law have been vitriolic and contentious since women began pursuing divorce in courts. Women's ability to access divorce alarmed both indigenous elites as well as colonial administrators and their intermediaries, triggering a backlash (Rodet 2007). In her tour of French West Africa, colonialist Denise Savineau lamented that Senegalese women knew the French were sympathetic to their claims of being ‘oppressed’, and therefore ‘they risk exaggerating, and provoking a kind of anarchy’ in their quest to rebel against men's dominance 27 .…”

Section: Persistence and Limits Of Women's Legal Victoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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When do women win in legally plural systems? Evidence from Ghana and Senegal

Hern

2022

J. Mod. Afr. Stud.

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Africa's plural legal systems are often doubly bad for women: reinforcing patriarchal threads in indigenous practices while layering male-dominated Anglo-European laws atop. While these systems generally work to their detriment, women are sometimes able to take advantage of them. Under what conditions are women able to ‘win’ in Africa's plural legal systems? I examine women's interactions with the plural colonial court systems in the Gold Coast and Senegal. Based on an analysis of original court records in each country, I argue that women are more likely to win in plural legal systems in areas of operational ambiguity where applicable legal principles are contradictory. Leveraging this ambiguity enabled women in the Gold Coast and Senegal to win rights around inheritance and divorce, respectively. These victories were codified post-independence, though women face social pressures against exercising them.

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Section: Women and Legal Pluralism In The Gold Coast And Senegalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Persistence and Limits Of Women's Legal Victoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

When do women win in legally plural systems? Evidence from Ghana and Senegal

Hern

2022

J. Mod. Afr. Stud.

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“…Pour ne pas mettre en danger son alliance avec le pouvoir traditionnel, le pouvoir colonial essaie donc d'appliquer, à tous les niveaux, une politique de maintien de la famille indigène perçue comme la base de la stabilité de la société indigène et de l'autorité traditionnelle. 38 L'articulation famille indigène /pouvoir traditionnel /ordre colonial est particulièrement visible dans la circulaire Brunet du 5 octobre 1920: Le rapport politique annuel de la colonie du Soudan français de 1934 mentionne à nouveau le problème croissant de la « dispersion des éléments constitutifs des collectivités », certaines souffrant de complète désagrégation, ce qui porte atteinte au pouvoir des chefs traditionnels. 41 Comme le montre l'analyse de la pénalisation de l'abandon de domicile conjugal, cette politique de maintien de la famille indigène est largement appliquée par l'administration dans le suivi des affaires de justice indigène.…”

Section: L'écran Androcentriste Colonialunclassified

« Le délit d'abandon de domicile conjugal » ou l'invasion du pénal colonial dans les jugements des « tribunaux indigènes » au Soudan français, 1900-1947

Rodet¹

2009

fch

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This article aims to examine the interplay between customary law, colonial law, and French law through the study of court cases of female desertion in the region of Kayes in French Sudan (now known as Mali) for the period 1900-1947. In 1903, a new colonial legal system was decreed in French West Africa. The new legislation guaranteed that the colonial courts would enforce African customs for African subjects. In order to facilitate control over colonial courts and the application of customary laws, the colonial administration was eager to formalize and unify the content of customary laws. This formalization relied on what the "traditional power," the jurisprudence of colonial courts, and the colonial administration viewed as customary law. This process ultimately led to a kind of "invention of tradition" pertaining to family law, which with the help of "traditional power" entailed the penalization of female desertion. The colonial and local considerations of power control in the region entailed increasing restrictions over women's mobility. From 1910 onward, wives accused of desertion were increasingly forced by the colonial courts to return to their husbands. If they refused, from 1914, the court started sending them to prison. Both "traditional power" and the colonial administration had agreed to declare female desertion as being henceforth a "customary offence."

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“…In the case of colonial legal sources, male voices increasingly lay claim to rights for men, to the detriment of women. 16 However, a majority of the civil cases heard before the provincial court (1 st degree court) in Kayes in the first twenty years of the twentieth century concerned women. Even if women were not always parties to the proceedings, they were very often at their origin, as is shown in cases of 'bridewealth repayment' where a rejected suitor demanded the portion of the bridewealth he had already paid to his fiancée's relatives.…”

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confidence: 99%

‘Bigamy’, ‘marriage fraud’ and colonial patriarchy in Kayes, French Sudan (1905–1925)

Rodet¹

2019

Courtship, Marriage and Marriage Breakdown

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This study is based on detailed analysis of marriage cases handled by native courts and colonial correspondence about the administration of indigenous law in the region of Kayes between 1905 and 1925. Under the heading 'marriage cases', I include not only divorce cases, but also cases related to bridewealth repayments, abandonment of the marital home and cases of 'bigamy' and 'marriage fraud', which I will focus on in this chapter. The region of Kayes is to the west of the colony of French Sudan (modern-day Mali), on the border with Senegal. Kayes was the first colonial capital of French Sudan, before this status was transferred to Bamako in 1908. First, I examine marriage cases which were tried as civil matters. However, from the 1920s onwards, marriages cases in the legal archives that include the terms 'bigamy' and 'marriage fraud' begin to be handled systematically as criminal trials.In this chapter, I will therefore attempt to trace the case law which moved marriage cases from the civil to the criminal courts, and which led 'bigamy' and 'marriage fraud' to appear as offenses in the registers of judgements at Kayes' first-degree courts from 1905 to 1925. These cases are an important source of information on gender relations and disputes between men and women in French Sudan in the colonial period. They reveal complex interactions between men, women, colonial administration and 'traditional' authorities. They also reveal that, contrary to what is often supposed, women did not hesitate to take cases to the courts and the administration in order to defend their marital rights and express themselves about marriage consent and love in a context of colonial legal pluralism. 1The interaction between colonial administration and local populations played out on two levels. On one hand, the administration used indigenous law to its own ends, in order to This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Courtship, Marriage and Marriage Breakdown :Approaches from the History of Emotion (2019).

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Genre, coutumes et droit colonial au Soudan français (1918-1939)*

Cited by 14 publications

References 7 publications

When do women win in legally plural systems? Evidence from Ghana and Senegal

When do women win in legally plural systems? Evidence from Ghana and Senegal

« Le délit d'abandon de domicile conjugal » ou l'invasion du pénal colonial dans les jugements des « tribunaux indigènes » au Soudan français, 1900-1947

‘Bigamy’, ‘marriage fraud’ and colonial patriarchy in Kayes, French Sudan (1905–1925)

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