ABSTRACT
The question regarding what forms of marriage should be recognised for legal purposes is a signifi cant one in a world of increasing cultural and religious diversity. (For further discussion see Chapter 7.4 of this book.) For some countries, this is a relatively recent phenomenon. Other countries have long been made up of a variety of religious and cultural populations, and have approached the issue in different ways. This chapter addresses the developments and challenges relating to the recognition of customary and religious marriages, and non-marital domestic partnerships in South Africa. South Africa provides a good example of development of policies in this area because, like most countries that had been colonised by Britain and Europe, it inherited a colonial legacy that was heavily infl uenced by a Christian understanding of marriage, which is characterised mainly by monogamy and heterosexuality. The colonial Christian underpinnings for marriage were eventually adopted by the apartheid state, where marriage was defi ned as ‘the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion while it lasts of all others’. 1 However, since the advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994, family law policy has had to recognise the vast religious and ethnic diversity of the country. This chapter considers how this has been done.
