Frontmatter -- Preface -- Table of contents -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Establishing paternity and demanding child support in a Ghanaian town -- 3. Law in the context of Nkoya society -- 4. Family dispute settlement and the Zambian judiciary: local-level legal adaptation -- 5. To claim or not to claim: changing views about the restitution of marriage prestations among the Anufom in Northern Togo -- 6. Judicial manipulation of customary family law in Tanzania -- 8. Problems of creation and dissolution of customary marriages in Nigeria -- 9. The effect of marriage on the status of children in Ghana -- 10. The choice of law dilemma in Lesotho: some criteria for decision making in family law -- 11. Marriage in Kwahu, Ghana -- 12. The emergence of the 'stranger-permit marriage' and other new forms of conjugal union in rural Sierra Leone -- 13. Nullity of marriage and divorce: relevance of a western distinction to modern African law -- 14. The Kgatla marriage: concepts of validity -- Bibliography