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Muslim communities have settled in South Africa more 300 years ago, but their religious marriages were not recognised in South Africa. Muslim marriages were denied recognition merely because they are potentially polygynous in nature. This non-recognition has created many hardships for Muslim women. These hardships has prompted the Women Legal Centre (WLC) to institute a class action compelling the government to enact legislation recognising Muslim marriages. The Supreme Court of Appeal ordered for the recognition of Muslim marriages for all purposes and for the abolition of child marriages in Muslim marriages. The SCA Judgment was later confirmed by the Constitutional Court. The decision of the SCA is appraised; however, to permit marriage of a person under the age of 18 under certain circumstance might defeat the very aim of having the minimum age for marriage in the first place. This is so because Muslim marriages are notorious for permitting child marriages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the evolution of vertebrate sociality requires comparative data on social associations across the vertebrate phylogeny. In the case of group‐living lizards (i.e. species that live in stable social aggregations often associated with a shared resource), most work has focused on the Egerniinae in Australia, resulting in a taxonomic and geographic skew to our understanding of reptile sociality. The African cordylid lizards (Cordylidae) are also a promising system to study the evolution of sociality because grouping behaviour varies across the clade. Here, we studied the conspecific grouping behaviour of two crag lizards, Pseudocordylus langi and P. melanotus subviridis that occur at high elevations in the Maloti‐Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa. To better understand their social organisation and mating system, we also present data on their spatial distribution, sexual dimorphism, and bite force. Both Pseudocordylus spp. were sexually dimorphic in morphology (males had larger heads than females of similar body size), colouration (males were more colourful) and female P. langi had a weaker bite force than males. Both P. langi and P. m. subviridis were associated with rocky habitat on the mountainside (e.g. cliffs, rock buttresses, and rock outcrops) and both were spaced apart and rarely in groups (79% of P. langi and 90% of P. m. subviridis were observed alone). Based on our findings, we hypothesise that both Pseudocordylus spp. have a territorial social structure and a polygynous mating system. This novel natural history information about crag lizards supports the assertion that Cordylidae is another model system for examining the evolution of sociality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South African Law Reform Commission has proposed a single marriage statute to reconcile the several enactments regulating marriage in South Africa. This comment argues that the Bill should include old customary marriages in its definition of a customary marriage and is underinclusive in its recognition of polygyny with a religious or cultural basis and not the more general practice of polygamy. Furthermore, the requirement of cohabitation for the recognition of a life partnership is onerous and may exclude vulnerable parties from protection. While the Bill is commended for requiring a husband to obtain the consent of existing wives before he concludes a further marriage, the note recommends that the Bill give meaning to the notion of consent. Finally, the Bill must address existing issues within the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act 120 of 1998 which have invalidated a range of customary marriages too often at the expense of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to statistics, Christianity is the religion with the highest following in South Africa. It is known that religion plays a significant role in culture and society as a whole. Polygyny has been extensively researched from many vantage points, however, these studies have mainly been from a Middle Eastern perspective, not from a Zulu cultural perspective. In the Middle East, culture and tradition are based on the religion of Islam and, in turn, Islamic religion informs culture. In contrast, in the Zulu culture, someone can be a Christian while continuing to adhere to beliefs in amadlozi (ancestors), in spite of the latter being against Christian teaching. For some Zulu people, religion and culture are deeply intertwined - their culture is their religion and vice versa. Using an interpretivist paradigm within a qualitative methodology, this study interviewed 10 female adults who had been raised in polygynous families, to determine how their religion impacted their identity. This study was carried out in Hammarsdale, KwaZulu-Natal, all the participants had been formally educated, and the study was underpinned by social constructionism and African feminism theories. The finding is that religion and culture are two sides of the same coin in relation to their position on women's subordination. This paper aims to foreground how the Christian religion impacts on women raised in polygynous families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South Africa, the preference for monogamy is founded on the South African legal system's civil-law tradition. Attitudes that potentially polygynous African customary and Muslim marriages were contra bonos mores and uncivilised should not merely be ascribed to colonial policies and political ideology, often based on Christian doctrine. The rejection of polygyny in Roman society was continued in Roman- Dutch law and reflected in the comments of the Roman-Dutch institutional writers. In this article I trace the historical antecedents of the rejection of polygyny in the civil-law foundations of South African law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa has a multicultural society in which legal pluralism prevails. Within the dual-systems state-law paradigm, the Western common law is the principal legal system that directs legal development and reform. The common law is hybrid in nature: predominantly founded on the civilian tradition (Roman-Dutch law) but substantially influenced by the common-law tradition (English law). African customary law is recognised as state law but assumes a secondary position. The dominance of the common law is revealed in the interplay of the two state-law systems, but it is evident in judicial decisions that a measure of convergence of the systems has taken place. Attempts at the harmonisation of the two systems of law are onesided and directed only at the adaptation of the African customary law. This has resulted in the expansion of the existing multiplicity of legal sources by the creation of a new official legal system that has features of the Western common law and vaguely resembles African customary law. Further, the adaptation of the African customary law to bring it in line with the predominantly Western constitutional values has enhanced the divide between the official customary law and the unofficial living African customary law that has developed in accordance with fundamental African jural postulates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the impact of polygynous Muslim marriages on the spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. It focuses on the institution of polygyny in Islam, the South African response to polygyny, the impact of polygyny on the incidences of AIDS, and the contribution of both an informed approach to HIV and an enlightened approach to the application of Islamic values on the control of the disease's spread. It discusses the nature of polygamy in Islam under the Muslim Personal Law (MPL), which allows a man four marriages at one time but exercises strict monogamy on women, and the South African law reforms for the recognition of MPL. Statistics related to the Muslim and HIV/AIDS-affected population are also presented.

We studied maternal, paternal, and alloparental care in striped mice (Rhabdomys pumilio), which nest and breed communally in the succulent karoo, South Africa. A total of 18 triads, each consisting of 2 adult female littermates and an unfamiliar adult male, were set up under natural weather conditions. We expected that relationships within captive triads that breed communally would be egalitarian, and that all individuals would participate in the rearing of offspring, but we assumed that the degree of caregiving behavior would vary between mothers, fathers, and alloparents, because individuals obtain different fitness benefits. Social interactions in the triads were predominantly amicable and in the majority of triads, both females produced litters in a communal nest. All 3 adults in a triad participated in care of the offspring, with mothers spending 43%, fathers 26%, and alloparents 24% of observations in caregiving activities. Our results indicate that sisters can form stable cooperative relationships, but members of a communal nest allocate their caregiving to individual offspring according to potential trade-offs between direct and indirect fitness benefits. Large amounts of paternal care can occur in a polygynous species, which contrasts with the common belief that paternal care is a characteristic of monogamy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the often cited and dismissed, but rarely examined, relationship between legalizing same-sex marriage and polygamy. Employing a comparative historical analysis of U.S. and South African jurisprudence, ideology, and cultural politics, we examine efforts to expand, restrict, and regulate the gender and number of legally recognized conjugal bonds. South African family jurisprudence grants legal recognition to both same-sex marriage and polygyny, while the United States prohibits and resists both. However social and material conditions make it easier to practice family diversity in the U.S. than in South Africa. Our analysis of the very different histories of polygamy and same-sex marriage in the two societies suggests the centrality of racial politics to marriage regimes, yielding paradoxical narratives about the implications of legal same-sex marriage for the future of polygamy and sexual democracy. If there is a slippery marital slope, we argue, it does not tilt in a singular or expected direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flexibility (varying from monogamy in South Africa to polygyny in East Africa) has been documented in the mating system of the oribi ( Ourebia ourebi) by several authors. To investigate this, a population was studied in Northern KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa). The adult sex ratio was one male to 1.38 females and the mean group size was 2.1 (n = 13). Although monogamous and polygynous groups occurred in the study population, the polygynous groups were unstable and depended on seasonal food abundance. Comparison of oribi populations across Africa suggests that variation in the mating system is determined mainly by predation risk and altitude (most likely through its effect on graze quality). In areas of high predation risk, oribi can survive only when resource quality permits females to forage in groups, thereby allowing males to be polygynous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioural observations were carried out on grey rhebok and mountain reedbuck at Sterkfontein Dam Nature Reserve, South Africa, for a period of 1 year between May 2001 and April 2002. Four harem herds of grey rhebok, five territorial male mountain reedbuck and female mountain reedbuck (herds grouped as one individual) were monitored to determine activity budgets and activity patterns. Both species spent more time feeding in the late afternoon during relatively cool temperatures, and more time resting in the middle of the day during relatively high temperatures. Statistical comparisons between the two species of the percentage time feeding and resting found no differences between them, although mountain reedbuck spent more time resting overall than grey rhebok. Both species were active at night. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the discovery of intraspecific variation in both colony composition and patterns of paternity in two populations of the social common mole-rat Cryptomys hottentotus hottentotus. These two populations represent the mesic and arid habitat extremes of the species’ broad ecological range in South Africa. Until recently colonies of the common mole-rat were thought to consist of familial groups whereby all colony members were the offspring of a monogamous reproductive pair. The remaining colony members were thought to forego reproduction until both social and ecological conditions favoured dispersal and opportunities for independent outbreeding. Results from genetic assignment tests using microsatellite markers indicate that while colony composition is dominated by familial groups, colonies within both populations included both adult and subadult foreign conspecifics. Analysis of parentage reveals that the social organization of C. h. hottentotus is not that of strict monogamy; paternity of offspring was not assigned consistently to the largest, most dominant male within the colony. Moreover, a number of significantly smaller males were found to sire offspring, suggesting a sneak-mating strategy by subordinate within-colony males. Extra-colony extra-pair paternity (ECP) was also found to characterize C. h. hottentotus colonies, occurring with similar frequencies in both habitats. Both dominant established breeding males and subordinate males were identified as siring young in nonsource colonies. Furthermore, established breeding males were found to sire extra-colony young in the same season as siring young within their source colonies. We discuss the significance of these results within the context of the divergent ecological regimes characterizing the two sites and observe that our results revisit the accuracy of using behavioural and morphological characters, which have structured the basis of our understanding of the behavioural ecology of this species, as indicators of breeding status in mark–recapture studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article determines the relationship between corporal punishment of children by their parents and the children's academic achievement in polygynous families in Transkei, South Africa. The author selected a stratified random sample of urban and rural Black Xhosa-speaking children between the ages of 13 and 17 years from 14,765 boys and 26,109 girls, who represented the total Standard 7 population in Transkei, South Africa. The sample included 114 children from polygynous families and 881 children from monogamous families. To estimate the frequency of corporal punishment, the author used a questionnaire. The students indicated, on average, the number of times they were beaten by each parent during the years when they were in Standards 5, 6, and 7. An analysis of variance indicated that there was a negative relationship between corporal punishment and academic achievement for boys from low-SES, polygynous families, but for girls there was no relationship between these two variables. By and large, there was a negative and statistically significant relationship between corporal punishment and children's academic achievement, regardless of SPS and of whether the family was monogamous or polygynous.