Page 181 - Arabian Studies (V)

Women *s Inheritance of Land in Highland Yemen 169
that she could go to ‘any neighbour’s house (atraf baytf and they
would take her in. The woman, who was of a wealthy family, had
taken her land from her brother and given it to her sons to farm.
In such cases where a woman has a strong claim to a sizeable
property, the following pattern seems to be the most common one.
The woman leaves the farming of her land to her brother(s) for
most of her life and agrees to receive a substantially smaller return
on the land than could be obtained from a free share-cropping
arrangement—although, for several reasons, this is not really an
alternative. In return for this assistance to her brother, she retains
his support and the security of having somewhere to go in case of
marital difficulties or divorce. Only later in life, when a woman is
truly secure in her marital household, with grown sons to support
her in old age, will she have her sons press her claim.
If a woman’s sons (and husband) will do the fighting or litigat­
ing, this does not mean that they can often do this without her
consent. Action by the men is a fortunate fiction because it allows
relations between brother and sister not to be entirely poisoned by
this tension.12 Here, though, women speak more frankly than men,
for once a woman has moved her property from under her
brother’s management, relations between brother and sister are
unlikely ever to be as close again.
The timing of this transfer implies a change in the position of a
woman during her middle life. If the transfer of a woman’s
property occurs at about the time when she may be the head of the
women in an extended household, and not when she is a young and
insecure wife, nor old and decrepit, she makes a contribution to the
household that in some manner consolidates her position. Also,
about this time her adult son (or sons) may be putting pressure on
the father to allow him to farm a part of the joint family property
by himself. In such case the mother’s land is transferred not to her
husband, who can never be hers in the sense that her sons can, but
to her sons, thus simultaneously easing some of the divisive
tensions within the household and assuring the woman a lasting
claim on the marital household, or perhaps more exactly on her
sons. In short, not only is the mature woman most likely to be
managing the household, to be free from the burden of childcare
and from the constraints upon her interaction with men outside the
family, but she is also, on average, most likely to have a real say in
the disposition of her property only at this time in life.
The situation of the very old woman, particularly the old widow,
may not be so strong. With the death of her husband, she is no
longer central in the negotiations between her husband and her i
son(s), and at the same time, the younger women in the household
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