Gloria Paidamoyo Chikaonda

The Zimbabwean marriage regime is currently a complex legal maze riddled with lacunae that leave especially women and children vulnerable. As a result, human rights activists, civil society, and legal practitioners have made repeated calls for its consolidation, especially as they relate to the protection of women’s property rights, the end of child/forced marriages, the recognition of cohabitation relationships, and other unofficial or unregistered customary unions. With many actors at play, the law has been a controversial subject of legal reform with considerations of gender, politics, culture, and religion all impacting the slow progress of the law. Supplemented by historical context I use a multi-pronged qualitative methodology to understand the development of marriage legislation in Zimbabwe and unpack the various socio-cultural factors embedded within the struggle over marriage reform. I seek to demonstrate how the institution of marriage continues to be a focal point for social engineering and highlight the challenges presented by law-making in pluralistic, post-colonial societies.