The female child and family inheritance
Titi Oloyede knew quite well that she would have no access to her father’s estate after his demise as the first daughter. Even while her father was alive she had been told several times by her uncles that she would never be the heiress of her father’s estate.
Hence, after her father’s death her younger brother was named the heir. “I was sad and I felt defeated at the time. I almost cursed God for creating me as a female. I studied Business Administration in one of the best schools in the U.K and I had a Masters for a renowned school in the U.S. I see no reason why I should be discriminated against by the members of my family my own blood because of my sex,” says Bolatito.
In some parts of the world particularly in Africa, women find themselves operating within a gendered environment where men generally have better access to resources than women. Irrespective of their position within social networks, women are still faced with negotiating their status and rights to property in terms of deeply embedded conceptions of family and the women’s role therein. It is that which frames the ways in which their claims to property are acknowledged and received.
What then is the right of women within the family? Inheritance right for women in Nigeria is a struggle that transcends class, religion, and ethnicity in Africa. Women in Nigeria face inheritance barriers within their birth family as well as within their marriages. In divorce it is very difficult for women to receive financial support or for properties to be distributed equitably. One criticism is that women’s work in the home isn’t given the same value as that of men outside of the home, therefore giving the impression that the wife made no contribution in the acquiring of marital property. In the case of a husband’s death, many Nigerian women have seen their marital home stripped bare by their in-laws who claim the properties left behind as their own. Traditionally, women are taken care of by the family of her husband, usually by marrying a brother of her husband. In today’s urban Nigeria, this practice is no longer adhered to by its traditional intention and many women simply find themselves in the streets with little legal protection or recourse. The authors explain the three-part legal system at play in many African countries. These are statutory, customary, and Islamic. It is the latter two the most often governs marital issues, and it is the latter two that are the most prejudicial towards women.
“I see no reason why a female child should not be groomed to head the father’s company after his demise,” says Akintobi Oloruntoba. “It’s a customary practice that the female child is not supposed to head the family let alone inherit the father’s estate in Nigeria. It’s a barbaric practice that must be abolished. I believe there is not difference between a female child and the male child. The difference is in the genital organs and not in the brain. In fact a female child is more often brilliant and is more responsible than the male.”
Issues of inheritance have turned apart and are still threatening the peace and harmony in some families. The issue is usually so sensitive that there are several lawsuits amongst siblings, and other people related by blood, says a Lagos-based lawyer who spoke on condition of anonymity. He also reveals that there are instances when some family members have used diabolical means to strike each other which have resulted in deaths, physical and mental sicknesses of those contesting with them over an inheritance. He says many families do not even respect the will of deceased persons. “If they are unable to obtain a deceased person’s property by legal means, some resort to illegalities and diabolical means to secure the property. Such families have been wrecked as a result.”
Even amongst well-educated families, it is saddening that those cultural practices forbidding female children from inheriting property are still being observed. A family from Eastern Nigeria with four children under 15 years, three boys and a girl are already contending with the issue of inheritance. Though their father has Masters Degree, he is observing the cultural practice of his homeland and has not included his daughter in his will. His wife has a fast growing business. Her asset base is increasing rapidly. She was also denied inheriting any property by her brothers and has had to work very hard to start and grow her business. In annoyance over the unfairness of the cultural practice, she has decided to make her daughter her sole heir disinheriting all her sons. She has said it over and over again that her daughter is the sole owner of her rapidly growing business, which includes buildings and lands. At the rate her business is growing, the female child may end up with more assets that all her brothers.
Her daughter, who is just about ten years old, has started warning her eldest brother that she is the sole owner of their mother’s property and so he has no rights as far as their mother’s property is concerned. It sounds like kiddies’ stuff as the parents laugh over it. Some analysts are however of the opinion that it could lead to sibling rivalry and it would be better for the parents to divide their property equally amongst their four children.
Austin Bomi, a female lawyer, says inheritance in different customs and traditions of different people, is always at the discretion of the head of the family. “Before now, a father who owns parcel of lands, property, will always tell all members of his household what should be given to whom after he dies, which would be adhered to after his death. Before the advent of wills as document of instruction on what to do after ones death, our fore fathers use the oral method of sharing their wealth, dividing parcels of lands among children before eventual death, so no fight will ensue thereafter.
“But now, there is the use of a will, in a custom that does not favour the female child, a father can leave his property to the daughter in his will especially when the son is useless or a spendthrift.”
In certain parts of Nigeria, the maltreatment of widows is common. In-laws and the community subject them to physical and emotional abuses such as being made to sit on the floor; being confined from a month to one year; having their hair literally scraped off with razors or broken bottles; not being allowed to bathe; being made to routinely weep in public; being forced to drink the water used to wash their husband’s corpse; crowned by the loss of inheritance rights and eviction and many more.
ANNE AGBAJE