Tag: Naamah

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Naam-ah: The Other End of Chev-ah’s Matriline (1a)

Naamah Mount Ararat Peaks

The other end of Chav-ah’s pair of bookends is Naam-ah. These two famous women support the names of the patriarchal record of the ‘Generations of Adam.’ Chav-ah (Eve) is at the head of her Mother House. I have coined this phrase thus with the meaning, ‘all those of the same kin’, that is, ‘uterine sisters and brothers and kin springing from her.’ 1

Naam-ah acts as sturdy support at the other end of Chav-ah’s weighty list of male character’s names, particularly Seth’s linage. Just as the three sons of Adah and Zillah are the founders of the human vocation, all aspects of human culture, linked to their archetypal occupation. This is in contrast to divine mythological creators of cultural roles that characterise many mythological beginnings tales.

The Root of Naam-ah’s Name

Naam-ah’s name comes from the Hebrew root n’m: ‘to sing’. This would make Naam-ah the ancestral singer, the archetypal founder of vocal music and the arts: music, poetry, psalmody, prophetic. There is an intimate connection between women composing and presenting solo and group songs accompanied by the prophetic throughout the OT Scriptures, carried through into the NT.

Indeed it is claimed that musical diversity is the natural state of Jewish culture. Singing women of Israel in the Hebrew scriptures are accompanied by drums and timbrels, dancing and worship, reciting blessings, prophetic utterance. They became the doorkeepers in the keeping alive of ancient stories in the oral tradition.

Singing Women

Examples are Miraim, Deborah, the Levite women singers in the wilderness sanctuary and the temple in Jerusalem, and many others. Indeed, wherever worship happens, singing women are found widely across cultures beginning with mothers crooning to their infants to women working together and every other aspect of life and community where women are involved.

Chav-ah’s two male genealogies are Cain and Seth. Seth was born after Cain murdered her second son, Abel.

Chev-ah’s two sons: Cain and Seth

Cainite Line

 

Two women, Adah and Zillah, are recorded within Cain’s linage. No doubt there were any number of men the sisters could have chosen, (names not recorded), but these two women made Lamech famous by their choice of him. Other than this, Lamech’s only other claim to fame suggests he was infamous, a violent perpetrator, boasting he had killed a man. This shows Lamech was a man not unlike Cain his father.

The sisters’ main purpose in choosing Lamech the Cainite and inviting him into their tents was for him to sire children at their bidding. This was the way of women 2 of endogamous unions. [i] It ensured their individual interest were met in building up their own Mother House and staying on their land.

This is the first record of this kind of matrimonial arrangement where uterine sisters choose one husband. [ii] The sisters’ son’s achievements are remarkable and are recorded in a previous paper, Adah and Zillah. 3 Their mothers’ influences on them is obvious. 4 Only one daughter is recorded: Naam-ah,  born to Zill-ah.

Chav-ah’s Cainite and Shemite Line united in Naam-ah

In due course, Naam-ah of Zill-ah the Cainite took her distant cousin, Noe of Shem’s line, into her tent (B’reshith Rabba). 5

Her background is identified as Noe’s wife [iii] Before the deluge, Naam-ah’s three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, sired by Noe were born. At the proper time, these three sons of Naam-ah met with cousins from (unnamed) Sethite women who received their siring partners into their woman’s tent.

Following the flood, Naam-ah’s sons at their wives’ bidding produced children. These three sons 6 of Mother Naam-ah, Shem, Ham [iv] and Japheth, sired by Noe, are recognised by the Jews as the tribal heads of all nations. 7

Cain and Shem of Chav-ah’s linage united through Mother Naam-ah

To recap, the matrimonial arrangement of the Cainite woman Naam-ah with the Shemite, Noe, united Cain and Seth’s two lines of Mother Chav-ah, prior to the flood. This union saved the famous Kenite tribe (Cainites) and the Shemites, that is, the Semitic race, from extinction. [v]

The salvation of these two races of people was solely due to Naam-ah choosing Noe. We do not know if she knowingly made this choice. I name Naam-ah, and other women like her, women champions, saviours in Israel.

Finally, these three couples, together with mother Naam-ah and her husband Noe entered the ark. These eight were safe from the great flood (1656 BC). Thus the human race began again with Naam-ah as its ‘Mother of All Living.’

Chav-ah, Ad-ah, Zill-ah, and Naam-ah.

Thus ends Chav-ah’s matriline. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did research it. More on this in the next publication in this series: Paper 1b/ Chav-ah’s Matriline: Looking Backwards and Forward

END

 

ENDNOTES

[i] Endogamy can serve as a form of self-segregation. A community can use it to resist integrating and completely merging with surrounding populations. Minorities can use it to stay ethnically homogeneous over a long time as distinct communities within societies that have other practices and beliefs. Judaism traditionally mandates religious endogamy, requiring that both marriage partners be Jewish while allowing for marriage to converts.

Orthodox Judaism maintains the traditional requirement for endogamy in Judaism as a binding part of Judaism’s religious beliefs. Whilst the more liberal Jewish religious movements are far more permissive with regard to interfaith marriage and conversion requirements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogamy.

The isolationist practices of endogamy may lead to a group’s extinction, as genetic diseases may develop that can affect the increasing population. However, this disease effect would tend to be small. Unless there is a high degree of close inbreeding, or if the endogamous population becomes very small in size.

ENDNOTES

[ii] You will note I’ve turned the interpretation around. The patriarchal interpretation infers the women are passive bystanders waiting and hoping some man will choose them. Then he can carry them off to his father’s house and kin to bear children ultimately build up his tribe. It’s not the Jewish way.

ENDNOTES

The Code of Jewish Law clearly states that a child of a Jewish mother is Jewish, regardless of the father’s lineage (or whatever else may show up in a DNA test), while the child of a non-Jewish mother is not Jewish. Matrilineal descent has been a fundamental principle of Torah since the Jewish people came into existence.

It’s up to the reader to interpret, but take note, the patriarchal interpretation of marriage doesn’t fit the image we have been given of Jesus returning for His bride. Jesus came to us and is returning to us. We will marry and Jesus will join us with our kin. The bride will live with her husband amongst her kin on this earth.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrilineality_in_Judaism.

ENDNOTES

[iii] I note the feminine ‘ah’ wherever women’s names are used. The spelling of No-ah ends in the feminine ‘ah’. I will call ‘Noah’ the male equivalent ‘Noe’ from here on in my writings. There is debate amongst some scholars whether this No-ah is a woman or a man. (there is another Noah in the Scriptures and it denotes a daughter (of Zelophehad, Num 36: 5-11, etc.)

Some notable Jewish Rabbis have made some progress in this regard. According to rabbinical interpretation, this is due to the text itself. The Rabbis interpretation accepts it as the ‘male sons of Noah’ going into her tent. This misdemeanour happened following the flood when No-ah drank too much. There, Ham uncovered No-ah’s nakedness, a euphemism for improper sexual conduct. If No-ah is a woman, she is the Matriarch who re-started the human race after the deluge and not Naam-ah.

For our reading here I have made a choice. Either Naam-ah or No-ah is the post deluge ‘Mother of All Living’. Either way, Naam-ah is a notable matriarch in the matriline of Eve through to Sar-ah. As no one can know for sure it’s a matter of what happens to fit your particular slant on the subject. My goal here is to build an argument for the matrilineal line from Eve to Sar-ah and how this translates into the NT. I have therefore chosen Naam-ah.

This conversation is liable to upset those who set in their fundamentalist doctrine. For them, all conjecture is disconcerting. But I’m simply here to share what I have found through my research and join the discussion. My main work is to trace the ‘woman’s seed’ through the genealogy of the Semites leading to Mary. I, therefore, present the argument here and leave Naam-ah and No-ah for the woman reader to ponder further.

ENDNOTES

[iv] I have posted this article below to bring a better understanding of the issue of inequality in the church. Issues of injustice such as inequality regarding gender, race, slavery, children born out of wedlock, inheritance rights, divorce, nepotism … the list is long. Where past mistakes are rectified gives us an opportunity to rejoice. Below is Dake’s family statement in regards to what was part of an outdated version of ‘The Dake Annotated Reference Bible’.

About Finis Dake

Finis Dake grew up in an era where this was definitely a topic of debate in Christian and social circles. Some fought for an end to injustice, some fought to keep the status quo. Racism and the use of Biblical text to explain, support, or justify racism was simply a reality of the time and place.

Nor is Dake alone in this regard, for the footnote on the 1945 edition Scofield Bible I obtained contains questionable interpretations of the story of Noah, Shem, and Ham in Genesis, which also seems to have been noted by Dake.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R5L4VGU3BCJLC

Warm regards

Patricia

A note from the Dake family website explains, “…And so in the fall of 1996, we discussed the matter as a family. We made a unanimous decision to edit or remove any note that could be misconstrued as a racist comment.  The first printing to reflect these changes happened in January 1997.”

“30 reasons for segregation of races”.

The Dake Annotated Reference Bible KJV (Page 159 of the 1967 edition) notes in one of the side list. Finis J Dake wrote (The Dake Annotated Reference Bible KJV) is titled “30 reasons for segregation of races”. The Dake family removed this list. Recent editions no longer include it. Among the 30 reasons given are:

“1. God wills all races to be as he made them, any violation of God’s original purpose manifests insubordination to him (Acts 17:26, Rom 9:19-24) 2. He made everything to reproduce after his own kind (Gen 1:11-12, 6:20, 7:14) 3. God originally determined the bounds of the habitations of nations (Act 17:26, Gen 10:5, 32, 11:8, Dt 32:8) Kind means type and colour or he would have kept them all alike to begin with. 4. Miscegenation means the mixture of races, especially black and white races, or those of outstanding type of colour.

The Bible even goes farther than opposing this. It is against different branches of the same stock intermarrying such as Jews marrying other descendants of Abraham (Ezra 9-10, Neh 9-13, Jer 50:37, Ezek 30:5) 5. Abraham forbad Eliezer to take a wife for Isaac of Canaanites (Gen 24:1-4). 6. Abraham sent all his sons of the concubines, and even of his second wife, far away from Isaac so their descendants would not mix (Gen 25:1-6). 19.

Jews recognised as separate people in all ages because of God’s choice and command (Mt 10:6 Jn 1:11). Equal rights in the gospel give no right to break this eternal law. 29. Wearing Garments of mixed fabrics forbidden (Dt 22:11 Lev 19:19) 30. Christians and certain other people of a like race are to be segregated (Mt 18:15-17 I Cor 5:9-13,6:15, 2 Cor 6:14-18, Eph 5:11, 2 Thess 3:6-16, I Tim 6:5, 2 Tim 3:5[….]” (page 159 of NT).

ENDNOTES

[v] The interweaving of marriages between Chav-ah’s two lines, Cain and Seth, through Naam-ah, helps us understand why, later, the Kenites and Israel were friends. I show in my paper on the Kenites that members of this tribe frequently inter-married with Judahites.

The Kenites were Bedouin, (though not all), and this meant moving continually. Marriage between these two tribes was especially prominent amongst those Kenites living in Judah’s territory in the South. I am surmising they stayed in Judahite territory enjoying the protection this offered them. More on this when we read ‘The Kenites’ due for publication as soon as possible on my website.

The first instance of Kenites is when Abraham sired children with a Midianite woman, Keturah, mother of Midian. Later, Zipporah the Kenite woman and priest of the monotheistic God, YWJH, invited Moses into her tent. This physical union pre-empts the later spiritual union of Hobab the Kenite a priest of Midian with Moses and finally Israel.

Zipporah was one of the seven daughters of Jethro, a Kenite shepherd who was a priest of Midian (Ex 2: 18). Zippor-ah also a Priest first taught Moses the ways of YWJH when she acted as a priest in circumcising her son and saving Moses’ life. We will learn more of this in my paper ‘The Kenite Mothers’ (published in late 2020).

FOOTNOTES
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Adah & Zillah: Chav-ah’s (Eve’s) Genealogy

Adah Zillah Genealogy Arabia
Map: What is happening in Arabia in 1000BCE? Up until around this date, most of Arabia has been entirely uninhabited. Nomadic groups live on the margins, where grasslands allow their herds of sheep and goats to graze, but the barren interior has not allowed any peoples to establish a foothold. At around this time, however, the camel is domesticated. These hardy animals allow nomads to travel long distances in the desert. Trade routes across the Arabian peninsula begin to be pioneered, and oases begin to be populated. The classic “bedouin” lifestyle begins to take shape. Perhaps related to these developments, a new civilization is emerging in southwest Arabia, based on large-scale irrigation systems which bring the dry but fertile soil of the region to life. Credit: Timemap

Previously…

In the first post in this series, we looked at Chav-ah (Eve), the first woman and the beginning of her matrilocal Mother House, situated East of Eden.  Eve gave birth to three named sons: Cain, Abel, and Seth.  Cain murdered Abel, his brother. From Cain come the Kenites 1.

The Semitic languages 2 respectively. For those tribes to develop there had to be women’s seed (ovum) which brings us now to the Mothers.

The Mothers: Ad-ah, Zill-ah, and Naam-ah

There are three Mothers in Cain’s patriarchal genealogy and none recorded in Seth’s linage. These three Cainite Mothers, Ad-ah, Zill-ah, and Zillah’s daughter, Naam-ah, stem from Eve’s Mother House. They are very important players in God’s plan for future Israel.

The Cainites (Kenites) play an important role in Israel’s future. Pleas watch for the paper ‘Kenites’ in the near future. We do not encounter women in Seth’s linage until Sarah and her sister Milcah are named after the flood.

The women built up their own Mother Houses in Eve’s matriline: it was ‘in the way of women’ to do so. It was in keeping with the ancient system of kinship and land ownership and land inheritance through the Mother. 3

Matrilineal kinship through women-only

In ancient times, matrilineal kinship through women-only prevailed throughout the earth. In this way individuals related through a common female relative. Husbands and wives had different kinship affiliations. Children were of the same kinship group as their mother. In matrilineal systems, the mother’s brother (maternal uncle to his sister’s children) played a vital role, since a child often inherited from his mother’s brother. 5

When we read Genesis chapters 4 and 5, the children are recorded as Adam’s offspring. These genealogies are overwhelmingly made up of men’s names. In many cases the gender or genuineness of those names cannot be proved.

According to female kinship, the names recorded there are ‘kin’ in the truest sense of the word: all of one Mother’s House. Therefore, listed under their mother’s names they are all of one blood. The Hebrew Scriptures identify these kin as: ‘bone of bone and flesh of flesh’.

We now begin our journey to trace the building of the Mother’s matrilines as they continue through daughters born to them. 6.

To date I have not read any bible commentary on sisters marrying by deciding to take the same man into their tents for the sake of siring children. This is the opposite of the patriarchal record always showing the (proactive) man marrying the (passive) woman. However, there are two instances that cannot be ignored here in early Genesis which shows that this may have been practiced.  Here, the sister’s, Adah and Zilpah’s marriage relationship with Lamech appears to reflect that motif 7 to Lamaech shows the first breakaway from the model of one woman and one man in a monogamous relationship. According to patriarchal interpretation, however, they are the first women to suffer the fate of polygamous marriage. This patriarchal interpretation suggests Lamech their husband instigated this polygamous arrangement. But to do so presumes the women were subservient, passive, and passionless. It also advances the idea that the sisters readily left or were stolen from their Mother’s House.

It suits patriarchal interpretation to hypothesise the notion that the sisters were stolen away or willingly left their kin to marry Lamech. In leaving their kin, it then follows that they dwelt in and produced children in a patrilineal household. However, a plain reading of the text does not show that. The women are listed in Eve’s linage under her son, Cain. My argument here challenges the patriarchal interpretation as one of an exogamous marriage and a male instigated polygamous relationship with Lamech as the head of the house.

To interpret as a polygamous relationship fits the patriarchal social model of exogamy resulting in a patrilineal household. It also constitutes violence against women. Rather, the evidence shows that the marriage arrangement of the two sisters with Lamech, all recorded in Chav-ah’s  line, through Cain, was an endogamous one. 8

In summarising the above, and just as the patriarchal interpreters do, let’s allow the speculation. That is, it is possible the women entered into an arrangement acceptable to them, that satisfied them. It is entirely possible the sisters were satisfied with just one man to sire their children. Perhaps this was common 9. Certainly, it was paramount to the continuity of the family structure of the Mother’s House that the land was not broken up. (E/n [iii]).

This means, the members of the mother’s house identified themselves as close kin (today we would say, ‘extended maternal side of the family’). This included the mother’s brothers, sisters,  cousins,  aunts, and uncles. Marriage between aunt and nephew is recorded where a woman named Jochebed, a daughter of Levi, the mother of Miriam, Aaron and Moses.

Jochebed married Amram, her nephew, of the same mother’s house and also a Levite. Jochebed is Amram’s aunt (Ex 6:20). Both spring from the unnamed wife of Levi, albeit different generations. This account offers both matrilineal and patrilineal  descent from Levites. The general comment on this is it may be in order to magnify the religious credentials of Miraim, Aaron and Moses.

As the kinship units grew, they became households. From these maternal clans formed: (a larger group of sisters and brothers, cousins and distant cousins). Finally groups of rural villages clustered together, spreading and more established.

They only identified as tribes, while all still relating to the one mother, when collectively they united under the name of the one patriarch. This is seen in the instance of  internal and external disputes threatened Israel. Internally, Israel’s tribes gathered together under one mother’s house or where an external war threatened they gathered as tribes under one father.  Hence those long male genealogies.

Later, in the matter of violence toward women we do find violence accompanied the stealing of mother’s daughters from their land and house. One particular case stands out. That is the unique case of the daughters of Benjamin. 10‘

In the case of external wars outside, the tribes of Israel certainly practiced stealing foreign women. It was impossible to stamp out, Moses had no option but to provide laws to restrain such practice which went against the social order of endogamy.

Further, the endogamous household and kin had no daughters-in-law or sons-in-law. This is a more recent invention of patriarchy to accommodate their social system. 11

WOMEN’S GENEALOGY: CHAV-AH’S  LINE

Ad-ah and Zill-ah

The only women named in Eve’s linage are three mothers: Ad-ah, Zill-ah, and Naam-ah. It is accepted generally that two of the women Adah and Zillah were sisters. These two, through Cain, are the first in crucial matters concerning a change in marriage in the early kinship of women. 12

‘And Ad-ah and Zill-ah married Lamech’ (Gen 4: 19)  [Paraphrased by Patricia].

AD-AH and her two sons: Jabal and Jubal

Jabal

Adah gave birth to her first son Jabal. Jabal was the originator of those who dwells in tents and has livestock (a condition characterising the later Kenites (Gen 4: 20).

Tents and Livestock

Comment:

Tents and Livestock: a condition characterising the later Kenites (other than the Rechabites). Cain himself was sedentary. He built and lived in a city. However, the murderer’s descendants were landless.

Cain’s line: Bedouins

The first bedouins, unlike nomads, who lived in tents only during certain seasons, lived in tents, thus continually moving following their livestock. A famous Kenite Bedouin woman named Jael lived in her tent. 13 When we look at the Kenites as a tribe, however, we will find some others were not nomadic.

The Bedouin way of life, moving with the flocks and living in tents signals a new social order arising out of a need for stock and pastures. It appears  their wives accompanied them on their wanderings, but living in their own tents.

On the other hand, Abraham was nomadic. He wandered with his flocks in Beersheba. Sarah did not wander with him. She lived in her tents with her flocks and servants atop Hebron’s plateau and did not move around.

Jubal.

Jubal was the originator of all those who plays the lyre and pipe. (Gen 4: 21).  [Paraphrased by Patricia]

Comment:

Jubal’s maternal aunt was Naam-ah, of whom we learn more about in the next paper. Several Jewish traditions associate Naam-ah with singing, others with teaching. It means Naam-ah had a strong influence on Jubal, her maternal nephew.

Zill-ah and her two children: Tubal-cain (son) and Naam-ah (daughter)

Tubal-cain,

Tubal-Cain was the ‘forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron (Gen 4: 22a , also Ezk 27: 13).

Cutting instrument of brass and iron

A condition characterising the later Kenites. Lamech the father of Tubal-cain appears as if he may have had a strong influence on Tubal-cain, his son. Given his swaggering words, Lamech is associated with violence and murder. 14

The Kenites were important in the spiritual development of early Israel (see my paper ‘Kenites’ published late December 2020). This famous tribe spring from Adah and Zillah’s sons and their unnamed wives (presumably their maternal aunts and / or cousins). 

Continued next time …  Zillah’s daughter: Naam-ah (Gen 4: 22b).

Hope to meet up next time when we take a closer look at Naam-ah.

Much love,

Patricia

 

 

Thinking about Adah and Zillah …

We may have read these two women previously and thought of them as used and abused. Yet looking at them in a new light allows hope to shine through.

Consider …

Have you previously read the bible and thrown it away from you or skipped over certain passages due to patriarchal interpretation as those readings only added to your pain and disappointment in your experience of patriarchal Christianity?

Have you cried out to God for answers and largely due to lack of scriptural evidence your hope was deferred, and you grew sick in heart?

Do you plan to stay in that state now that you have found a new source of hope?

Will you not turn back from your backsliding ways and renew your vows to your Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?

If so, pray this prayer with me:

Almighty Everlasting Eternal God …

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done

I put everything I am, and own, on your altar

I give to you all that I am, all I shall ever be.

Make me as one that serves.

Lead me, show me your will,

Take away anything that is holding me back

from knowing Jesus

the face of the HOLY MYSTERIOUS ONE, the Great I AM, the Almighty God,

Take away that which prevents me from becoming who I am becoming.

I forgive …. Please forgive me.

Please supply my daily needs.

Give me the personal conviction I lack

to live these days in embodied prophetic action

Amen.

END

 

 

ENDNOTES

[i] Says Prof. Robertson Smith of Cambridge: ‘In Genesis, marriage is (defined as implying that a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh. This is quite in accordance with what we find in other parts of the patriarchal story. Mr. McLennan has cited the marriages of Jacob, in which Laban plainly has the law on his side in saying that Jacob had no right to carry off his wives and their children; and also the fact that when Abraham seeks a ‘wife for Isaac, his servant thinks that the condition will probably be that Isaac shall come and settle with her people. All these things illustrate in Genesis 2:24 as the primitive type of marriage.’

Bushnell comments: In this case, Abraham would not consent, because Sarah had requested she come to take her place as Chief in her tent in Hebron to continue building her house and also knowing God had expressly called them away from practicing idolatry. Joseph’s children by his Egyptian wife became Israelites only by adoption: and so in Judges 15, Samson’s Philistine wife remains with her people and he visits her there. And we might ask, what does that primitive form of language mean,–‘cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh,’ but that he shall become of the same kin as his wife? The same writer says: ‘Mother kinship is the type of kinship, common motherhood the type of kindred unity, which dominates all Semitic speech.’

J.P. Peters, D.D., writing of this same passage in Genesis says: ‘In the relation which man is here represented as holding towards woman, we have, apparently, another of that incidental evidence of the great antiquity of this story. It is not the woman who leaves father and mother and cleaves to the man, but the man who leaves father and mother, and cleaves to his wife. It would seem as though we had a survival of the old matriarchate, that relation of the marriage of which we have an example in the Samson story, where the woman remains with her tribe, or clan, or family, and is visited by the man. The offspring in such a case belongs to the woman’s family, not the man’s’ (Bushnell. Early Hebrew Story, p. 223). Para 57.)

[ii] Katharine C. Bushnell (1856-1946) Free download. “Can’t recommend this book enough”! Patricia  https://godswordtowomen.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/gods_word_to_women1.pdf

[iii] The word in its purest form, polygamía, is a ‘state of marriage to many spouses’: the practice of marrying multiple spouses. Patriarchal interpretation only allows for one outcome: When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time. When a woman is married to more than one husband at a time, sociologists call this polyandry. In contrast to polygamy, monogamy is marriage consisting of only two parties.

My research shows polyandry was/ is more prevalent where land fragmentation means dividing up the land between men, thus lessening the bargaining power of blood brothers, the sons of one man/ sons of the man’s chief wife. When we consider my argument that the women-owned the land it is entirely possible sisters of one mother chose to marry only one man and had the siring rights to him.

In beginning, Adam was a murderer bringing death into the world through sin. The Hebrew scriptures show no Israelite murderer owned land. Men are the sons of Adam. The greed for land ownership exhibited by the majority of men and history records it. It still resonates in the male psyche today. This seems to me to echo a fear associated with landlessness. The Creator knew land ownership was/ is critical for women. Today the need has not abated. Below, India is an example.

The crucial point made here is, that although women in India have the legal right to own land, very few actually do as a result of the patriarchal practices which dominate the nation. Up until recently, Indian women have been left out of laws regarding the distribution of public land and were forced to rely on the small possibility of obtaining private land from their families. Inheritance laws that cater to men are one of the key issues behind inequality in land rights.

According to Bina Agarwal, land ownership defines social status and political power in the household and in the village, shaping relationships and creating family dynamics. Therefore, the inheritance of land automatically puts men above women both in the household and in the community. Without political pull in the village, and with limited bargaining powers within the household, women lack the voice to advocate for their own rights.

Another issue with land rights in India is that they leave women completely dependent on the lives of their husbands. A study by Bina Agarwal found that in West Bengal, prosperous families turn destitute when the male head of the household dies, as women are not permitted to take over their husband’s land. Also, due to cultural tradition, the higher the status of the woman, the less likely she is to have any developed skills that would be useful in finding work. These women are forced to beg for food and shelter once their husbands die because they have not been allowed to gain work experience (Kanakalatha Mukund).

Bina Agarwal argues that land ownership significantly decreases the chance of domestic violence against Indian women. Owning property elevates women to a higher status within the household, allowing more equality and bargaining power. In addition, owning property separately from their husbands allowed women an opportunity to escape from abusive relationships. Agarwal concluded that the prospect of a safe shelter outside of the main household decreases the longevity of domestic violence. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3146971?seq=1

FOOTNOTES