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Kathmandu Thursday October 11, 2001 Ashwin 25, 2058.
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Let down
One of the surprises that the ongoing session of
Parliament has thrown up is the 11th Amendment to the Civil Code Bill which has just been
railroaded through Parliament. The Bill which also legalizes abortion under certain
circumstances, has been a let down for daughters as it does not give them right to
parental property on par with sons. Not surprisingly the CPN-UML, the main opposition
party, boycotted the House during passage of the Bill. Although the Bill is an improvement
on the existing law, it fails to go far enough. The law as it exists makes it mandatory
for women to remain unmarried till the age of 35 before they become eligible to inherit
parental property. The new Bill makes daughters eligible for that inheritance right away,
just like their brothers. But when they get married, which a vast majority of them will
surely do, they have to dutifully return whatever they inherited. The Bill is only a nod
in the direction of daughters’ property rights.
Before this controversial piece of legislation
goes all the way to the Palace and becomes a fait accompli, there are three points that
should be borne in mind, points that the debate around this whole issue does not seem to
have adequately addressed. The first of these is that the property issue has serious
implications for socio-economic development. Accumulated wisdom in the social sciences is
veering around to the view that social change will pick up only when women become full
partners in the process. As long as men remain more equal than the opposite sex, society
will stay lopsided as far as forward movement is concerned. The only way to ensure greater
equality is to work towards greater equality in access to economic resources. Society has
to find a way of doing this. The second point to be borne in mind is that no system that
has been worked out so far to tackle the issue of inheritance rights is without problems.
The new Bill has been brought in precisely because the existing arrangements were felt to
be inadequate. But the idea of going all the way and giving daughters an equal share of
parental property was also felt to be problematic. Daughters would end up inheriting
property from parents as well as spouses once they get married. And the prospect of
marrying into money would skewer the marriage market as well. The will system, which is
widely practised in western countries and which has been advocated by some of our top
leaders, is also not without problems, especially relating to documentation. These
problems would be worse in a still illiterate society such as ours.
Given this difficult choice and since it is
women who are the most directly affected, it is they themselves who should have the major
say. And that is the third point. When deciding matters that have a direct bearing on
women, the opinion of women should be the decisive factor. The pros and cons of the
property rights issue will always remain. Yet when a decision has to be made it is the
women folk who should be able to tilt the balance. Men need not arrogate to themselves the
right to decide the issue for the so called weaker sex. It is this consideration that has
not been given adequate weight in the debate that accompanied the Women’s Property
Rights Bill.
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