Based on government statistics and interviews with villagers across Malawi this article argues that customary matrilineal and patrilineal land tenure systems serve to weaken security of land tenure for some family members as well as obstructing the creation of gender-neutral inheritance of lands.
This paper is about land tenure relations among the matrilineal and patrilineal cultures in Malawi. Data from the National Agricultural and Livestock Census are used to characterize marriage systems and settlement and landholding patterns for local communities. Marriage systems correspond to customary land tenure patterns of matrilineal or patrilineal land holding.
Includes official land rights in Kenya; refusing inheritance – widows and daughters in the patrilineage, dispute trajectories; institutionalizing women’s exclusion – local control boards, local dispute tribunals, formal courts; shifting the debate; working with constructive values in this context.
