One important impact of the Bhe v Magistrate Khayelitsha ruling was the creation of the
Recognition of Customary Marriage Act. But researchers studying its impact in South Africa
in March 2016 found:
The implementation of the Recognition of Customary Marriage Act and of
intestate succession rules found that in most cases, when a family member
died, the estate was administered outside the new rules, and the families
did not follow the new rules when distributing the estates.48
The continued administration of estates outside the civil law—and continued
discrimination against women in inheritance rights—shows that legal change alone is not
enough to change some harmful practices without addressing the root causes of such
opportunism, including a lack of legal empowerment, unequal power dynamics between
genders and within families, and a lack of enforcement of formal law.
48 Chuma Himonga and Elena Moore,
“South Africa: Inheritance – Women are still cut out,” March 3, 2016,
http://allafrica.com/stories/201603031229.html (accessed January 11, 2017).
“YOU WILL GET NOTHING”
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