WOMEN’S LEGAL RIGHTS ACROSS THE REGION
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BOX 2.7
Do Matrilocal and Matrilineal Communities Provide Stronger Rights for Women? In some matrilocal societies (societies in which the married couple lives near the wife’s family), ownership of land can pass to daughters rather than sons. Women in matrilocal societies tend to have higher status than women in patrilocal communities. And customary law in matrilocal communities could be more advantageous to women than formal statutory provisions. In some matrilineal communities, although inheritance passes through the women’s blood line, it is still generally given to males (the son of the husband’s sister thus inherits). As such, this inheritance custom has little impact on promoting women’s economic rights. Source: USAID 2006.
Very few countries have banned the practices outright. Given that dowries offer women greater economic security than bride price (because women get to keep their dowries after the marriage ends), reducing the size of dowries rarely benefits them (box 2.8).
Women’s Property Rights in Marriage Issues captured. Separate ownership of property regimes grants the husband no additional rights in administering a wife’s property in marriage. In theory, community of property regimes recognize property to be owned by the spouses, usually equally, though many countries with such regimes give the husband additional powers in administering property. In these cases, even where community of property in marriage guarantees women a percentage of the property after dissolution of marriage because of divorce or husband’s death, during marriage women have less legal control of marital property than under separate property regimes—or even none at all. These head-of-household provisions can also apply to property owned jointly by the spouses under an agreement in which the spouses are under a separate property regime by choice or default. For instance, if a husband and wife who are under a separate marital property regime buy property in joint names and sign a written agreement reflecting the joint ownership, the head-of-household rules apply to that joint property. Indicators. Scoresheet 5 includes the following indicators:
• Whether the husband as head of household administers or manages community of property alone