This chapter analyses Ethiopia’s legal evolution from Iyasu V’s reign to the Great Codification, examining efforts to incorporate Western legal principles while preserving local traditions. It investigates early reforms including Iyasu V’s prohibition of chaining offenders and ritualised theft detection to reduce customary law abuses. The study explores Täfäri Mäkwännǝn’s regency laws limiting divorce, promoting Church marriages, and partially prohibiting slavery. It analyses the 1931 Constitution’s establishment of parliamentary law-making and judicial structures, which permitted interethnic marriages and marked a shift from imperial laws. The study then examines the 1960 Civil Code’s recognition of all marriage types as legal, with the exception of temporary marriages, and its attempt to reconcile biblical monogamy with Islamic polygamy. The chapter concludes by analysing how the 1960 Civil Code’s vague provisions led provincial judges to continue applying customary law.