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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Negotiated Spaces and Contested Terrain: Men, Women, and the Law in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-1939
Author:Schmidt, ElizabethISNI
Year:1990
Periodical:Journal of Southern African Studies
Volume:16
Issue:4
Period:December
Pages:622-648
Language:English
Geographic terms:Zimbabwe
Great Britain
Subjects:colonialism
customary law
women
Women's Issues
History and Exploration
Law, Human Rights and Violence
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Law, Legal Issues, and Human Rights
Historical/Biographical
Cultural Roles
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/2637040
Abstract:During the early years of European occupation in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), a degree of female 'emancipation' was encouraged by European missionaries and the colonial State. During the first three decades of colonial rule (1890-1920), legislation was enacted that outlawed child marriages, set limitations on bride wealth, and prohibited the marriage of women without their consent. Chronic shortages of male labour in the early 1900s, and the postwar recession of the early 1920s, forced State officials to reassess their African policy in order to appease African patriarchs. By the late 1920s, African chiefs, headmen and other male elders were the backbone of the administrative system of indirect rule. By the late 1930s, the colonial State and rural African patriarchs were engaged in full-scale collaboration, determined to control the mobility and sexuality of African women. This article explores the dynamics of the struggle over female 'emancipation', as it was waged between generations of Africans, between African women and men, and between missionaries and the colonial State. One of the primary terrains of contest, the power to create and implement 'customary' law, is a central focus of this investigation. Notes, ref., sum.
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