Why family laws are usually patriarchal: An evolutionary perspective
Regulating women’s sexuality is central to restrictive personal laws and helps maintain a male-dominated social order.
Join our WhatsApp Community to receive travel deals, free stays, and special offers!
- Join Now -
Join our WhatsApp Community to receive travel deals, free stays, and special offers!
- Join Now -
The July 10 judgement awarding alimony to a divorced Muslim woman immediately drew parallels with the Shah Bano case of 1985, in which the Supreme Court had delivered a similar verdict. But while the Congress regime at the time overturned the court’s decision, the Bharatiya Janata Party that heads the current ruling coalition has welcomed the recent verdict. Women’s rights are least likely to have been on either party’s agenda.
The Congress took steps to neutralise the Shah Bano decision because it drew the anger of some orthodox Muslims – not without reason, given the discontent in the All India Muslim Personal Law Board to the July 10 decision. The BJP, on the other hand, wants to introduce a uniform civil code, insisting that only Muslim family law is discriminatory towards women. That is false.
Family laws or personal laws are rules that govern marriage, birth, inheritance, child custody and rights and obligations of spouses. Whether family laws are formulated based on religion or by a secular state, they have, historically, tended to be discriminatory in favour of men.
As this 2012 World Bank report, based on a study of family law in 70 countries, notes, sharia laws were codified in Egypt around the same time that the secular Swiss Civil Code and the...
