German Identity, Intermarriage, and Divorce in Colonial Samoa (1900–1914)
Germany’s colonial past is again at the center of public debate. This book offers a focused contribution: a study of how the German administration in Samoa (1900–1914) used family law as a tool of colonial governance. Examining marriage, divorce, citizenship, legitimacy, and maintenance, Julia Hütte...
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| 格式: | Online |
| 語言: | 英语 |
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Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory
2026
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| 在線閱讀: | 2196-9752 |
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| _version_ | 1869529265855266816 |
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| author | Hütten, Julia S. |
| author_browse | Hütten, Julia S. |
| author_facet | Hütten, Julia S. |
| author_sort | Hütten, Julia S. |
| collection | Directory of Open Access Books |
| description | Germany’s colonial past is again at the center of public debate. This book offers a focused contribution: a study of how the German administration in Samoa (1900–1914) used family law as a tool of colonial governance. Examining marriage, divorce, citizenship, legitimacy, and maintenance, Julia Hütten shows how rules on the most intimate matters became instruments of colonial power and a mirror for ideas of ‘Germanness’. Interethnic families were already part of Samoan society when the imperial flag was raised in Apia in 1900. The new government tried to sort residents into two personal jurisdictions, ‘foreigner’ and ‘native’, yet people of mixed descent rarely fit neatly into either. The German Civil Code (BGB), which had only recently been enacted, granted citizenship to foreign wives of German husbands, but many long-standing unions in Samoa had never been registered as civil marriages. Officials responded by planning to prohibit future interethnic marriages and by compiling a register of so-called ‘half-castes’ born to unregistered unions, thereby expanding the reach of foreign jurisdiction. The formal ban on mixed marriages arrived in 1912, tightening these boundaries still further. Fault-based divorce procedures, unfamiliar in Samoan practice, also unsettled households by compelling spouses to assign blame and expose private life to official judgment. These interventions did not simply transplant metropolitan law; they interacted with Samoan custom, missionary influence, and local knowledge, producing outcomes negotiated by officials, petitioners, and communities. By tracing cases and policies across these 14 years, the book illuminates how colonial law marked racial boundaries, structured belonging, and reordered daily life in Samoan-German households. It also opens a window onto the German Empire itself: its anxieties about race and respectability, its administrative improvisation at the edge of empire, and the contested meanings of citizenship within a plural legal order. |
| format | Online |
| id | doab-20.500.12854ir-172896 |
| institution | Directory of Open Access Books |
| language | eng |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| publishDateRange | 2026 |
| publishDateSort | 2026 |
| publisher | Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory |
| publisherStr | Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory |
| record_format | ojs |
| spelling | doab-20.500.12854ir-1728962026-02-28T06:47:48Z German Identity, Intermarriage, and Divorce in Colonial Samoa (1900–1914) Hütten, Julia S. GPLH German colonialism Colonial law BGB Colonial Samoa Apia German empire thema EDItEUR::L Law::LA Jurisprudence and general issues thema EDItEUR::L Law::LA Jurisprudence and general issues::LAF Systems of law thema EDItEUR::L Law::LA Jurisprudence and general issues::LAZ Legal history Germany’s colonial past is again at the center of public debate. This book offers a focused contribution: a study of how the German administration in Samoa (1900–1914) used family law as a tool of colonial governance. Examining marriage, divorce, citizenship, legitimacy, and maintenance, Julia Hütten shows how rules on the most intimate matters became instruments of colonial power and a mirror for ideas of ‘Germanness’. Interethnic families were already part of Samoan society when the imperial flag was raised in Apia in 1900. The new government tried to sort residents into two personal jurisdictions, ‘foreigner’ and ‘native’, yet people of mixed descent rarely fit neatly into either. The German Civil Code (BGB), which had only recently been enacted, granted citizenship to foreign wives of German husbands, but many long-standing unions in Samoa had never been registered as civil marriages. Officials responded by planning to prohibit future interethnic marriages and by compiling a register of so-called ‘half-castes’ born to unregistered unions, thereby expanding the reach of foreign jurisdiction. The formal ban on mixed marriages arrived in 1912, tightening these boundaries still further. Fault-based divorce procedures, unfamiliar in Samoan practice, also unsettled households by compelling spouses to assign blame and expose private life to official judgment. These interventions did not simply transplant metropolitan law; they interacted with Samoan custom, missionary influence, and local knowledge, producing outcomes negotiated by officials, petitioners, and communities. By tracing cases and policies across these 14 years, the book illuminates how colonial law marked racial boundaries, structured belonging, and reordered daily life in Samoan-German households. It also opens a window onto the German Empire itself: its anxieties about race and respectability, its administrative improvisation at the edge of empire, and the contested meanings of citizenship within a plural legal order. 2026-02-28T06:47:43Z 2026-02-28T06:47:43Z 2026-02-27T12:59:56Z 2025 book 2196-9752 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/110115 9783944773520 9783944773537 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/172896 eng Global Perspectives on Legal History open access image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/110115/1/9783944773520.pdf Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory 10.12946/gplh27 10.12946/gplh27 478638b4-7e02-4f48-b41d-574a5d2192b4 9783944773520 9783944773537 190 Frankfurt am Main open access |
| spellingShingle | GPLH German colonialism Colonial law BGB Colonial Samoa Apia German empire thema EDItEUR::L Law::LA Jurisprudence and general issues thema EDItEUR::L Law::LA Jurisprudence and general issues::LAF Systems of law thema EDItEUR::L Law::LA Jurisprudence and general issues::LAZ Legal history Hütten, Julia S. German Identity, Intermarriage, and Divorce in Colonial Samoa (1900–1914) |
| title | German Identity, Intermarriage, and Divorce in Colonial Samoa (1900–1914) |
| title_full | German Identity, Intermarriage, and Divorce in Colonial Samoa (1900–1914) |
| title_fullStr | German Identity, Intermarriage, and Divorce in Colonial Samoa (1900–1914) |
| title_full_unstemmed | German Identity, Intermarriage, and Divorce in Colonial Samoa (1900–1914) |
| title_short | German Identity, Intermarriage, and Divorce in Colonial Samoa (1900–1914) |
| title_sort | german identity intermarriage and divorce in colonial samoa 1900 1914 |
| topic | GPLH German colonialism Colonial law BGB Colonial Samoa Apia German empire thema EDItEUR::L Law::LA Jurisprudence and general issues thema EDItEUR::L Law::LA Jurisprudence and general issues::LAF Systems of law thema EDItEUR::L Law::LA Jurisprudence and general issues::LAZ Legal history |
| topic_facet | GPLH German colonialism Colonial law BGB Colonial Samoa Apia German empire thema EDItEUR::L Law::LA Jurisprudence and general issues thema EDItEUR::L Law::LA Jurisprudence and general issues::LAF Systems of law thema EDItEUR::L Law::LA Jurisprudence and general issues::LAZ Legal history |
| url | 2196-9752 |
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