Marital Litigation in Early Colonial Lesotho 1870-1900

This article mines court testimonies to explore the experience of African women in the colonial judicial system in colonial Lesotho. Focusing on spouses embroiled in marital litigation before colonial justices, it investigates how women manipulated legal and extralegal avenues to advance their marital and child custody interests. It concludes that for all their ill effects of restructuring BaSotho gender, especially marital relations, missionary endeavours and early colonial legislation opened new opportunities for women. Women used these newly acquired and short-lived advantages to extract themselves from undesirable marriages and to successfully claim their children's custody.