Volume 1, Number 2
March 1995
Land Inheritance: Are Matrilineal Systems Giving Way to Patrilineal Systems and What Are the Implications?
Ruth Meinzen-Dick and Keijiro Otsuka put the following question on the Internet table: how widespread is Keijiro's observations from Ghana and Sumatra that matrilineal inheritance systems are rapidly giving way to patrilineal inheritance systems, particularly with respect to land. To what extent is this phenomenon, if widespread, driven by agricultural intensification, commercialization, and population pressure? Agnes Quisumbing (then at the World Bank, now at IFPRI) responded that evidence from India and Sub-Saharan Africa indicates that conversion of matrilineal systems to patrilineal systems occurs with the formalization of customary rights, due to the introduction of land registration that discriminated against women, often during colonialization. Often, land reform does not take into account women's role in farming systems, as evidenced by Carmen Diana Deere's work in Latin America.Shubh Kumar noted that matrilineal inheritance systems are present in most parts of the world. One reason that they are gradually eroding is the viewpoint derived from the larger patrilineal orientation of development per se that these systems are "backward" or not capable of increased productivity and growth. She is in the process of analyzing this issue in the Zambian context, where she has information from both matrilineal and patrilineal ethnic groups on agricultural practices and intrahousehold decisionmaking.
Other interesting work is being done on the issues of matrilineal and patrilineal systems of access to land by Pauline Peters (HIID), Jean Davison (Stanford University), Cynthia Brantley (University of California- Davis), and Kate Crehan.
The interest shown in this subject, both within and outside the Gender-CG network, has led us to set up an electronic conference on property rights and gender, currently scheduled for June to November. One key issue the conference will have to address is the "so what" question. More on the electronic conference later in the newsletter.
