Does criminalizing discriminatory cultural practices improve women’s welfare? A simple model of Levirate marriage in Africa

Yuya Kudo

Economics Letters, 2021, vol. 199, issue C

Abstract: Whether cultural practices that discriminate against women should be criminalized is an important consideration for policymakers. In this study, I show that, theoretically, legal prohibition may decrease women’s welfare, by analyzing one cultural practice called “levirate marriage,” which is widely observed in sub-Saharan Africa. According to this practice, because a widow is inherited by the brother or other male relative of her deceased husband, levirate marriage is often seen as a form of forced marriage. However, this practice is also anecdotally believed to provide social protection for widows, as they usually have limited property rights. According to the developed game-theoretic analysis, this practice is selected as an equilibrium when a widow’s other livelihood means are limited and her husband’s clan wishes to continue a family line through generations by keeping sons of the deceased within his extended family. In this equilibrium, the woman obtains her reservation utility plus the net information rent, which is given by the clan to encourage her to produce more sons during marriage. Legally prohibiting this practice makes it costly for the clan to provide this information rent or even offer the levirate marriage. Because this information rent disappears, her welfare may decline. The present investigation serves as an important caution for those who propose an outright ban on an anti-social practice that is seen as violating women’s human rights.

Keywords: Gender equality; Informal insurance; Legislation; Levirate marriage; Property rights; Widowhood (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J13 J16 K36 K38 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176521000057
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:199:y:2021:i:c:s0165176521000057

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109728

Access Statistics for this article

Economics Letters is currently edited by Economics Letters Editorial Office

More articles in Economics Letters from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().