ABSTRACT
Traditional African society had its own rules concerning the obligations of spouses towards each other and of parents towards children, rules which governed the co-operation of daily life and expressed and were supported by a system of values enshrined in religious beliefs. The feature of African marriage which is perhaps widely known to the general public is that polygyny—the legal marriage of one man to two or more women concurrently—is permitted. The limits placed on sexual activity by the rules of most African societies are less strict than those which most Europeans profess to accept. African marriage, like that of Europeans, is an association between two persons for mutual support and the procreation and rearing of children. But it usually has also the wider aspect of an alliance between groups of kin. Thus the polygynous joint family, consisting of a man, his wives, and their children, is the ideal of most Africans.
