Marriage, Women Agency, and the Native Courts in Colonial Abeokuta, Nigeria

Morenikeji Asaaju (Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria)

This study focuses on women and colonial courts in Abeokuta, southwestern Nigeria, in the early decades of the twentieth century. It examines the effects of colonial intervention on women and marriage. The point of departure is a set of disputes established on “native law and custom” recorded in the case volumes of the Ake, Abeokuta Native Court from 1905 to 1957. These cases provide significant qualitative and quantitative data on women and civil disputes presented before the courts. This study demonstrates that unique circumstances in the twentieth century, specifically colonial intervention and the establishment of the native courts led to the increase of divorce rate accelerated by the phenomenon of wives leaving matrimonial homes, establishing new unions of their choice, and approaching the court to end earlier unions and legalize the new ones. The study argues that despite the negative connotations that might be associated with wives leaving matrimonial homes irrespective of social constrains, requesting divorce in colonial courts, these women made use of the new circumstances to redefine marriage inserting modifications reflective of women’s choices and preferences, as evidenced through their claims collected from the court records.

Speaker: Morenikeji Asaaju (Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria & A.G. Leventis Fellow at SOAS Centre of African studies)

Chair: Professor Murray Last (UCL)

All welcome

Organiser: SOAS Centre of African Studies

Contact email: cas@soas.ac.uk