INHERITANCE LAWS AND GENDER EQUALITY

Abstract

The close connection of the laws on inheritance with property rights is historically grounded and represented in the reinforcement of existing power connections in the community at large with references to the gender-related disparity (Anand, 2024). Personal laws in India being based on religious practices have thus played a role in creating disparities between sexes of gender with regard to property allocation. Patriarchal traditions have privileged the dominance of men within the family resources (Singh et al., 2021). They are so engrained in the patriarchal system that they have put women at a disadvantage, denying women opportunities to be economically independent and assures them the subordination in families, even with attempts to make equality lawful (Ghai, 2024). The chapter focuses on the development of the laws of inheritance and how it has influenced gender equality in India. It centers on the discrepancies between reforms and enforcement of the law with reference to the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 (Damle et al., 2020). Although there were great modifications to provide women with coparcenary rights, it is hard to believe that the continued obstacle to the real achievement of equality is the cultural opposition and the ambiguity of laws (Sever, 2022). The discussed issues will also touch upon the ambiguities induced by some of the religious personal laws that control inheritance in the Indian state and their conformity or discordance with the principles of gender equality (Hossain and Jamil, 2022). Moreover, the chapter will cover the implications of gender inequality to a greater extent by demonstrating how prevalent value and the absence of newer mindsets have cut down the developmental pace of India in most of its spheres, including poverty eradication and gender equity in the workforce (Bhattacharya and Sachdev, 2021). The chapter proposes that despite the significant evolution of legal frameworks, the system Patriarchal structures and cultural norms that significantly affect the successful implementation of these progressive laws continue to reinforce the economic vulnerability and marginalization of women (Lusasi and Mwaseba, 2020)(Balraj, 2023).