Abuses of Women in Inheritance Across Cultures: An Exploratory Study of Its Prevalence and Religious Panacea

The patriarchal nature of African society generally lays emphasis on the superiority of men over women in every sphere of life. When a woman dies, in most African societies, her legacy is usually inherited by the husband, children, and her family. But if a man dies, the widow, usually experiences false accusations of killing her husband to deny her share of her husband’s properties. This paper examines how the dynamics of cultural practices in Nigeria promotes abuse of inheritance rights of women and discusses the possibilities of using Islamic inheritance rules as a divine solution to the abuse of inheritance rights of women. The research questions as follows: what is the nature of women’s rights to father’s estate? What is the nature of widow’s right to the husband’s estate? What is your perception about the Islamic law of inheritance? The data for this study were collected using questionnaire and simple percentage was used for the analysis. In this respect, a questionnaire was administered to 220 women who were purposely selected from the three major tribes in Lagos state, Nigeria. The result showed that various cultures in Nigeria favour male child, grant male higher rights to land and other properties and promote abuse of inheritance rights against women.