Patriarchy and Property: Goa’s Uniform Civil Code

Abstract

The fulcrum of gender equality in all its myriad manifestations is ownership and control over resources, and specifically in a developing economy, primarily and essentially land. However, these manifestations and also the intensity of interlinkages are to a deeply significant level determined by historical and regional specificities relating to economic as well as extra-economic factors and forces. Nowhere in India are these direct and indirect interconnects between gender equality and resources so intricate, nuanced and simultaneously complex as in the state of Goa which is the only state in India where women are guaranteed equal property rights. In this article the demystification of the link between patriarchy and women’s property rights is built on the prevailing intermixes of land, property and matrimonial rights according to the Portuguese Civil Code and the relevant laws and legislations including Family Laws, the Code of Comunidades, the Goa Mundkar (Protection from Eviction) Act of 1975, and the recent enactment in 2016 of the Goa Succession, Special Notaries and Inventory Proceeding Act, 2012.