FACTORS AFFECTING WOMEN'S SHARE IN FAMILY INHERITANCE IN DISTRICT PESHAWAR, KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA
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Date
2011
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Department Of Sociology, University Of Peshawar
Abstract
The present study was conducted to find out factors affecting the women’s share
in family inheritance in District Peshawar. It was based on the assumption made from
Structural Oppression Feminism Theory that inheritance denial to women in Pakistani
society is a common phenomena where male economicinterest in family inheritance is
directly or indirectly supported by patriarchy centered inheritance norms, practices and
legal, religious and social institutions. Data for the study were collected through a
pretested interview schedule from 384 sampled respondents belonging to both urban and
rural areas of District Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Findings of the study are based
on univariate and bivariate analysis of data.
The findings of the study confirmed the denial to women in family inheritance as
a common phenomenain the study area. Many respondents did not even consider the
denial as a violation of female’s basic human rights. Hence, this was found a common
phenomena among all socioeconomic groups. Almost three fourth of the total
respondents did not share inheritance with females at all while those who gave full share
constituted only 2.3 percent. The rest tried to exploit the females and their in-laws by
giving a small piece of land orlittle amount of money. A numberof factors were found to
affect the phenomena. Female inheritance denial was found significantly associated with
the families where land and property were considered as the critical and fundamental!
economic resources and assets for males who wanted to keep it within the family to
control both the resources and the females. Legal and religious institutions, despite
having clear rules and regulations, could not protect female inheritance rights. They were
both male dominated and found favoring the males. The females, on their part, could not
contact the legal institutions, especially, due to lengthy and cumbersome procedure as
well as high social and economic cost on litigation. Similarly, mosque and religious
leaders did not motivate the respondents to share inheritance with their females. In fact,
the male claim on family inheritance was further strengthened by the prevalence of
patriarchy based inheritance norms, practices, unlawful methods and complicated
procedures to get the share in inheritance.