customary, adjective

Usually in the collocations customary law, customary union. Of or pertaining to Black African traditional custom or law. See also Native Law (Native noun sense 1 c).
1927 Act 38 in Stat. of Union 332No male Native shall, during the subsistence of any customary union between him and any woman, contract a marriage with any other woman.
1929 Act 9 in Stat. of Union 42‘Customary union’ means the association of a man and a woman in a conjugal relationship according to native law and custom, where neither the man nor the woman is party to a subsisting marriage.
1953 S.M. Seymour Native Law 68A grown-up girl is not capable of contracting a customary union by herself. The contracting parties are the bride’s guardian and the bridegroom.
1971 Daily Dispatch 2 June 1The Transkeian Customary Unions Bill is a move to force those married under tribal customs to register their marriage.
1986 D. Welsh in P. Maylam Hist. of Afr. People 84Customary law and the judicial powers of chiefs was recognised in the reserves in cases involving Africans, and in civil cases between Africans outside the reserves.
1986 Reader’s Digest Family Guide to Law 237A woman married by customary rites has certain claims to inherit from her husband on his death.
1986 Reader’s Digest Family Guide to Law 260When blacks marry they can choose whether they wish to be married according to black customary law or according to the ordinary law of the land. The first type of marriage is usually..referred to..as a customary union.
1992 E. Jayiya in Pace Sept. 15Another pretty woman has become the fifth wife in the kraal of King Goodwill Zwelithini...Despite being a customary union, the bride was clad in an expensive white gown.
1993 D. Willers in Natal Witness 6 Jan. 12The constitution recognises and protects the right of those who identify with traditional and customary law to live by their own set of rules, and respects the role of traditional leaders and court systems to create and administer such law.
1993 R. McNeill in Sunday Times 20 June 16Race may finally have been abolished as a determining factor in law in South Africa, but we still have customary union and indigenous courts, and neither apply to whites.
1994 J. Raphaely in Femina Jan. 6One of the direct results was the throwing out of a proposal by traditional leaders that customary law should take precedence over the principle of equality in the Bill of Rights.
Usually in the collocations customary law, customary union.Of or pertaining to Black African traditional custom or law.
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