Law, Culture and Women's Inheritance Rights in ... - Leitner Center

Ms. Mercy Dixon, who we met in Kpando in the Volta Region, [FN300] encouraged her
husband to build a house for them after their marriage. Although she did not purchase the
construction materials, she bought food and other household items while her husband devoted his
resources to the house project. He later became ill, and she continued to support him and
maintain the household. After her husband died, her mother-in-law insisted that Ms. Dixon leave
the house. In Ms. Dixon's case, proving her contribution and share of ownership in the property
is particularly important because she was her husband's second wife, and they did not have any
children. If she is unable to prove part ownership, she will be forced to share the house equally as
tenants-in-common with her husband's first wife and her four children, despite the fact that they
made no financial contribution to the property.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Section 18 of the Intestate Succession Law currently defines “estate” to mean “self-acquired
property which the intestate was legally competent to dispose of during his lifetime and in
respect of which his interest has not been terminated by or on his death.” [FN301] Determining
the extent to which property should be excluded from the estate because it belongs to the family
or to the surviving spouse presents difficult and unavoidable problems of proof.
Courts have interpreted the term “self-acquired” quite appropriately as excluding family
property from the scope of Law 111. At the same time, women often contribute to the acquisition
of property during their marriage, and the amount that they contribute should not be regarded as
the “self-acquired” property of the husband. Nevertheless, as the cases above illustrate, it is often
difficult for women to prove their contribution in the face of a strong, though unstated, cultural
presumption in favor of the husband's ownership. As a practical matter, courts often simply
assume that the husband owned the property and place the burden on the wife to establish the
nature and extent *321 of her contribution. As a matter of equity and logic, however, proving
that property belongs to the wife should be no more difficult than proving that property belongs
to the family. Thus, to the extent that courts look to the broader circumstances in determining
what constitutes family property, including the nomonetary contributions of the family, courts
should also look to the nonmonetary contributions of spouses.
In interviews with the Crowley delegation, some judges expressed a willingness to consider
evidence of the contribution, financial and otherwise, women have made to acquiring property,
even if they cannot prove title. [FN302] As Circuit Court Justice Okraku in Accra stated:
The woman has lived with the man, has performed these services, washed these things,
cooked these things, so it would not be proper to say the woman has not contributed at all. . . . If
it comes to giving her part of the property, call her a joint-owner, I would go that way . . . . If she
struggled with you from the beginning, it would be wicked to say she has not contributed at all.
[FN303]
Circuit Court Justice Henry Kwofie in Takoradi stated that he already takes into account the
non-financial work of a housewife in distributing an estate or dividing property upon divorce.
[FN304] According to Justice Kwofie, most women in rural areas make significant nonmonetary
contributions. As an example, he described a case in which the woman had worked on
a farm owned by her husband. He found that it was not fair to say all the property was the selfacquired
property of the husband. To prove contribution, he considers the length of the marriage
and the nature of her contribution to the economic unit of the family. If she is employed, she can
give evidence of how much she earns compared with the husband's income. [FN305]