Apartheid did not make it illegal for most South Africans to marry across racial lines.
In the Cape Colony, which previously had a liberal and multi-racial constitution and a system of Cape Qualified Franchise open to men of all races, the Franchise and Ballot Act of 1892 raised the property franchise qualification and added an educational element, disenfranchising a disproportionate number of the Cape's non-white voters, and the Glen Grey Act of 1894 instigated by the government of Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes limited the amount of land Africans could hold
The first grand apartheid law was the Population Registration Act of 1950, which formalised racial classification and introduced an identity card for all persons over the age of 18, specifying their racial group

