Foreword

• Pages: 26-27

FOREWORD

When the faculty of law at Cave Hill, Barbados opened its doors in 1970, almost all the texts

used for the teaching of law were written by British authors, citing English decisions and natu-

rally referencing English law. Indeed, in 1963, Keith Patchett noted that although the general

principles of family law as contained in the laws then current in the Anglophone Caribbean

(“Caribbean” for the pur poses of this Foreword), were the same in the Caribbean as in

England, the for ms which the family often took in this region were not common in England.

Professor Patchett drew attention to “[t]he semi-permanent liaison so misleadingly called

common law marriage, the legal marriage contracted at quite a late age, perhaps after a period

of this de facto marriage, the large number of illegitimate children in a family, [and] the mother

or grandmother dominated family group from which the adult male is often absent”. It is prob-

ably fair to state that perhaps in no other area of law in the region was there such a profound

mis-match between prevailing social conditions and the applicable law.

In the fifty plus years that have elapsed since Patchett made his observation, there has been

a significant level of legislative activity aimed at nar rowing this gap although the search for

autochthony is a continuing one. This search is reflected in part in the circumstance that there

is such a considerable amount of scholarship on this branch of the law. The library at the

faculty of law at Cave Hill, Barbados contains, for example, numerous research papers, stud-

ies and theses on various aspects of family law in the region. Unfortunately, most of what has

been written has been devoted either to a unique area or areas of family law or else to the state

of family law in a particular countr y. Prior to now, there has not been a single text that has

attempted to address all the salient aspects of the family law of the entire region.

The absence, until now, of such a comprehensive text is not entirely surprising in light of

the wide legislative variations that are to be found region wide. In truth there is no single

Caribbean family law as such. There are several systems of law in operation in this field. The

law ranges from law imported or received from the former colonising power (for example, the

French civil code in the case of Saint Lucia) to local statutory recognition of singular indige-

nous norms and practices as with, for example, Orissa marriages in Trinidad and Tobago.

The task of writing a text book on Caribbeanfamily law is therefore an enormous challenge.

But it also a most useful undertaking for many different reasons not least of which is the fact

that in any given class of undergraduates at the various faculties of law in the region, a family

law lecturer is likely to encounter students from throughout the Caribbean all anxious to be

exposed to the law applicable to their own respective jurisdictions.

The value of this ambitious text is to be measured in part by how well it is able to system-

atise such a wide and diffuse body of law and the extent to and ease with which it affords the

reader the opportunity to explore further for oneself the separate strands of the variety that

abounds. The book does this extremely well by clearly setting out and commenting upon “with

equal weight and level of detail” the important features that characterise family law across the

region, simultaneously distinguishing the statutory regime applicable to each of the fifteen

Caribbean territories. Through the use of Carilaw, that under-utilised and under-valued treas-

ure store of Caribbean cases, Ms Tesheira cites and discusses a tremendous volume of relevant

local cases, and in particular first instance decisions from across the region, that illustrate how

the courts have been applying the law.

This book is of inestimable value to students, practitioners and judges alike. In my view it

makes a huge contribution to Caribbean jurisprudence not just because it fills an obvious void