Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to examine the interplay between customary law, colonial law, and French law through the study of female desertions' court cases in French Sudan (1900-1945). 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 the 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 was based 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 family law, which with the help of the "traditional power" entailed the penalization of female desertions. The colonial and local considerations of control over the populations incited both power to attempt to oblige women to return to their husbands. Since prison was becoming under the colonial rule a common sanction for "misbehaviors," colonial courts started sending to jail the women, who were increasingly suing and withstanding the "traditional power."