Imperial debris, intimate partnerships and family law reform in Cameroon

Abstract

This article explores the enduring impact of efforts by the French mandate administration and Spiritan missionaries to regulate intimate partnerships in French Cameroon between 1916 and 1956. Drawing primarily on French archival material, I show how administrators and missionaries sought to domesticate ‘modernity’ through activities targeting women’s status and roles within intimate partnerships. Spiritans promoted monogamous Christian marriage by advocating for Christian legal status and through ‘schools for fiancées’ called sixas, which often provoked violent confrontations. Despite decrying these activities as culturally disruptive, the administration passed significant marriage legislation. While these efforts are characterized as exercises of epistemic violence because of their attempted erasure of women’s and broader local perspectives, I nevertheless highlight their ambiguity. Moreover, garnering insights from history, anthropology, critical legal studies, postcolonial and feminist theory, I argue that remnants of these attempts to reshape intimacy endure as ‘imperial debris’, contributing to the impasse in reforming the Cameroonian Family Code. Further research unearthing local historical perspectives and experiences of intimate partnerships can facilitate more egalitarian family law in Cameroon.