'pbIn today’s Africa, we see not only the permanence of ancestral customs in the daily lives of rural and urban populations, but also many innovations... These are not only practices of circumvention or misuse of modern law, but above all alternatives which lie in between two. Marital relations and gender relations are determined in particular by new social considerations. In a context of widespread crisis, everyday life is characterised by a change in roles within the couple. While the status of the spouses remains unchanged, the relationship between parents and children is completely upset, with the material situation of the parents often resulting in a lack of parental responsibility. In the area of parenthood, the emergence of new forms of sociability (neighbourhood, street, administration, political life, NMR, etc.) also gives rise to a neo-parentage which sometimes takes precedence over genealogical parenthood. ‘/PB’ pbCamille Kuyu was born in Leopoldville, the former Belgian Congo. A doctor of law, graduated in philosophy and political science, he teaches at the universities of Paris I and Paris XI, as well as in Belgium, the Katholieke Universiteit Brussel and the Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis. In addition to teaching and research, he is an international consultant, a scientific editor, and President of the African Academy of Law Theory.’/PB