This Special Number of the Journal contains four articles concerned essentially with analysing the process of colonial law-making in the form of legislation dealing with certain key subjects. The four studies examine varied topics, touching on most of the former British dependencies in Africa north of the Zambesi, but they have in common a reliance on the official archives as a source in which the “secret” history of certain important enactments can be traced. The first two articles are directly related in content: Zabel and Morris examine the remarkable history of the marriage legislation in African dependencies—a notable example of attempted uniformity in colonial acts which led, however, to often protracted exchanges with local officials who anticipated special problems if the standard form of model legislation was applied in their territories. Those exchanges are distanced from us today not merely by time—for they commenced almost a century ago and were almost over by the time of the First World War—but also by their apparent unreality, even irrelevance, when viewed with the benefit of hindsight; for now we can perceive that the marriage laws in question have had little formative impact upon the direction or character of social change in Africa and, in particular, there appear to have been few obvious consequences flowing from the subtle variations in the statutes adopted as a result of the arguments which arose between the officials and which were often forcefully conducted, with forecasts of dire consequences if one or another provision was included or omitted.