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Law transfers often have not been successful because they didn’t fit with the local

legal culture. Of course, such local legal cultures may be stronger in some areas, such

as family law, than in others, such as air traffic regulation. This paper will study the

effect of legal transfers from Europe to Africa in the area of family law, as this is the

area of law which is generally considered to be the most closely linked with local

cultures. Examples will be drawn from several African countries, with an emphasis

on Nigerian law.2

In the course of history and in all cultures, family law used to be the core of local

customary law, applying uniformly and in a compulsory way to the whole

community. Ancestors are living in the (invisible) spirit world, which will be

connected to the ‘real world’ through the family. By this, family rules exceeded by

far what we are used to calling ‘law’ today. They were, and largely still are, part of a

much broader world view, encompassing metaphysical concepts and views. By not

following certain rules, people feared that they may make the spirits angry, or

disturb the natural balances, or offend the gods. ‘Family law’ in those societies

cannot be developed as a purely rational set of rules, independent of that

metaphysical framework which governs the society.

The societies that have best kept this link are the Islamic ones, where the Qur’an and

the Islamic rules, varying as to the schools within the Islamic tradition, remain the

basis for the law, including family law.