ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the preliminary findings from a small pilot study exploring to what extent and how a multiplicity of legally available options may influence people’s choices of marriage form and partner. In most highly industrialized countries, the choice of marriage partner is seen as a largely private or personal affair, taken with little interference from the state apart from formalities about prohibited degrees of kinship and consanguinity, the ages, sex and marital status of the intended partners. The form of marriage also leads to important differences in the legal consequences of the relationship. Uganda’s indigenous population consists of at least fifty-six distinct ethnic groups. Religious distinctions are important. They tend to be sharpest between Christians and Muslims, but exist between the Christian denominations as well, sometimes transcending ethnic identities and loyalties. Prior to colonization, marriage between indigenous Africans was regulated by the customary law of each ethnic group.
