Gopika Solanki: Adjudication in Religious Family Laws: Cultural Accommodation, Legal Pluralism, and Gender Equality in India

<i>Adjudication in Religious Family Laws: Cultural Accommodation, Legal Pluralism, and Gender Equality in India</i>. By Gopika Solanki. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 400 pp. $95.00 cloth.

Review of Adjudication in Religious Family Laws: Cultural Accommodation, Legal Pluralism, and Gender Equality in India by Professor Gopika Solanki

Book Review: Gopika Solanki, <i>Adjudication in Religious Family Laws: Cultural Accommodation, Legal Pluralism and Gender Equality in India</i>

This book argues that the shared adjudication model in which the state splits its adjudicative authority with religious groups and other societal sources in the regulation of marriage can potentially balance cultural rights and gender equality. In this model the civic and religious sources of legal authority construct, transmit and communicate heterogeneous notions of the conjugal family, gender relations and religious membership within the interstices of state and society. In so doing, they fracture the homogenized religious identities grounded in hierarchical gender relations within the conjugal family. The shared adjudication model facilitates diversity as it allows the construction of hybrid religious identities, creates fissures in ossified group boundaries and provides institutional spaces for ongoing intersocietal dialogue. This pluralized legal sphere, governed by ideologically diverse legal actors, can thus increase gender equality and individual and collective legal mobilization by women effects institutional change.

This article presents an empirical study of Jewish and Muslim women who go through divorce in Canada, drawing on a ‘left law and economics’ methodology. Religious law and family law have long been considered outside the market and, as a result, are more rarely accounted for in the law and economics literature. According to dominant narratives, religious family law is experienced by women either as an exceptional form of oppression or as a form of spiritual religious identity. In this article, I apply a ‘left law and economics’ approach to deconstruct these notions. On the basis of my socio-legal fieldwork with Jewish and Muslim women in three Canadian cities, I identify the background formal and informal legal rules, social norms and distributional practices that help produce asymmetric bargaining locations for women. I employ the economic language of costs/benefits to illustrate the ways in which religious parties bargain strategically upon divorce, although these market claims are surprisingly underrecognised by the legal system. Such empirical knowledge helps disenchant the idea that religious law is systematically used as punishing forces that make women worse off economically or morally inferior. It also allows for a distributive analysis which reveals how husbands and wives negotiate economic resources, desires and day-to-day decisions in all kinds of fair and unfair ways, flying in the face of conventional narratives surrounding women and religion.

This paper aims to analyze the role of women in Indian politics and its implications for gender equality. Despite the constitutional provisions and affirmative action policies, women's participation in politics remains limited in India. This paper examines the factors affecting women's political participation, the challenges faced by women politicians, and the initiatives taken by the government and civil society to enhance women's political empowerment. The study also explores the impact of women's political participation on gender equality and social development in India. Through an analysis of existing literature and empirical data, this paper argues that enhancing women's political participation is crucial for promoting gender equality and social justice in India. The findings of this study have important policy implications for enhancing women's political empowerment and promoting gender equality in India and other developing countries.

Child marriage remains a complex issue within Indonesia’s multicultural legal system. The lack of synchronization among state law, religious law, and customary law creates a significant space for legal contestation, particularly in the practices of marriage dispensation and marital validation (isbat nikah). This study aims to analyze the dynamics of legal contestation among these systems using a normative-empirical legal approach through the examination of legal documents, regulations, and critical legal literature. Employing John Griffiths’ theory of legal pluralism, the study reveals that the Indonesian state tends to adopt a form of weak legal pluralism, recognizing religious and customary laws only to the extent that they do not contradict state law. The primary academic contribution of this study lies in its detailed exploration of how local and religious norms influence judicial decisions regarding dispensation and marital validation—an area that has received limited critical scrutiny in previous studies, which largely focused on formal normative analysis. This research also highlights the inadequacy of uniform national legal policies in responding to the diversity of grassroots social norms. Therefore, it advocates for a reformulation of legal approaches that are more participatory and context-sensitive through inclusive dialogue among state authorities, religious leaders, and customary communities. Such an approach is essential to ensuring the fair and sustainable protection of children’s rights within an adaptive legal pluralism framework that reflects Indonesia’s social realities.

Legal pluralism involves the proposition that more than one manifestation of law exists in many social arenas. The legal pluralist paradigm is propagating across academic fields. In the 1970s, jurists and legal anthropologists working in colonial and post-colonial societies wrote about the coexistence of state law in various relationships with customary law, religious law, and indigenous law. The paradigm was taken in a different direction in the 1980s when a group of sociologically oriented jurists argued pervasive legal pluralism exists in all societies, now identifying law in terms of institutionalized rule systems and concrete patterns of normative ordering. An overview at the close of the decade declared, ‘Legal pluralism is a central theme in the reconceptualization of the law/society relation.’ Thereafter the notion continued to travel. In the past decade, ‘legal pluralism has become a standard fare in international and comparative law circles.’ Jurisprudence is the latest field to take up legal pluralism. In Pursuit of Pluralist Jurisprudence (2017), edited by Nicole Roughan and Andrew Halpin, is a collection of essays on the topic by a stellar cast of jurisprudents. A fresh breeze is sweeping through legal theory, shaking old verities, opening new vistas. The ‘exclusive concentration on state law was, it now turns out, never justified, and is even less justified today,’ Joseph Raz declared in this volume. Bringing theoretical attention to bear on multiple forms of law unsettles everything. ‘Instead of law we have laws, instead of methodology we have methodologies, and even plurality itself is observed and analyzed pluralistically,’ write Roughan and Halpin. The publication of In Pursuit of Pluralist Jurisprudence provides an occasion to convey key insights offered by legal pluralism and to expose confusions that threaten to impede fruitful engagement by jurisprudents. There are two major sources of confusion. First, legal pluralism encompasses three distinct clusters of ideas, blurred together by the same label and repeated narratives that portray them as continuous, though the differences are substantial. I label them manifest legal pluralism, sociological legal pluralism, and supranational legal pluralism. Second, analyses of legal pluralism have been dominated by theoretical groundwork articulated in ‘What is Legal Pluralism?’ by John Griffiths; though he later repudiated his core position owing to insurmountable conceptual flaws, it continues to shape and distort the discussion. Unpacking these sources of confusion will facilitate the jurisprudential analysis of legal pluralism. The topics covered in this essay are: Why Pursue Pluralism Jurisprudence?; Manifest Legal Pluralism; Sociological Legal Pluralism; Supranational Legal Pluralism; Promise and Conundrums of Pluralist Jurisprudence.

Background: The legal exception in the study of legal pluralism revealed in this article is not in the context of procedural law. This study highlighted the use of “exception” term. Legal exception is defined as an exception or not included in one carriage of legal reasoning. Through the judge's court decision No. 089/Pdt.G/2010/PA.GM on the Application for Polygyny Permit. Purpose: This paper aimed to explore and analyze the legal exceptions on plurality legal context of Indonesia related to the issue of hypersexuality and gender justice in polygyny case of Sasaknese Muslim Mariage in Lombok West Nusa Tenggara. Methods: A qualitative normative approach is employed; departing from the legal facts spesifically in Giri Menang Religious Court, the analysis and discussion applyed in this paper are the reasoning, paradigm, approach, and flow of socio-legal studies in law and society issue. Results: The findings indicated that the partiality of the judge's reasoning by ignoring the term legal exception in the context of legal pluralism. The judge's decision on the polygamy permit was not based on real legal rationality, but due to the applicant experienced by hyper sexuality. The odd thing of judge's reasoning only considers State Law and Religion, and ignores the Customary Law of Sasak marriage. While the Indonesian marriage law, there is no law that permits a husband to engage in polygamy based on the hypersexuality or other suffers deseases of husband. However, the law allows a husband to be polygamous on the basis of an incurable disease of the wife. Implication: The serious implication of this study espoused the distortion of the existence of customary law due to the strongest hegemony of state and religious law. Therefore various further studies are needed to reveal the relevance of customary law to positive law in Indonesia. Originality: The novelty presented in this article are the response of religious court judges to the existence of legal plurality in Indonesia, namely State Law, Religious Law, and Customary Law. The court decision emphasized that judges obey only for state and religious law, and ignored for the customary law. Even though the legal plurality of Indonesian society is directly protected by the constitution

In India, discussions surrounding the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) have mostly presented it as a legal tool for promoting gender equality by harmonising personal laws. The UCC is often portrayed in constitutional and political discourse as a response to discriminatory practices embedded in religious family laws, with legal uniformity assumed to be a prerequisite for equality. While this perspective has influence national debates, it remains inadequate for understanding regions where civil life is not primarily governed by codified religious or statutory laws. Arunachal Pradesh presents a distinctive and under examined context within the UCC debate. Characterised by extensive tribal diversity, geographic remoteness, and constitutionally recognised customary autonomy, the state operates within a plural legal order where unwritten customary norms regulate marriage, inheritance, property ownership, and dispute resolution. For many communities, customary law is not merely a cultural residue but the primary framework through which social order, authority, and justice are organised. At the same time, Arunachal Pradesh is firmly embedded within the constitutional framework of India, which guarantees equality, dignity, and individual rights. This coexistence of constitutional citizenship and customary governance raises a central question; how are constitutional commitments to gender justice mediated through customary institutions that derive legitimacy from tradition and community authority rather than statutory recognition? This paper examines the relevance of the Uniform Civil Code for gender justice in Arunachal Pradesh by situating it within the everyday operation of customary law. Rather than treating the UCC as an instrument of immediate legal replacement, the paper asks whether it can function as a constitutional reference point for assessing civil practices in plural legal settings. The focus is not on abolishing customary law, but on understanding how its institutional structures shape women’s access to rights and how constitutional principles can meaningfully engage with these realities.

"Legal pluralism" is hot. Indeed, "legal pluralism is everywhere." As Brian Tamanaha observes, not only is there "in every social arena one examines, a seeming multiplicity of legal orders, from the lowest local level to the most expansive global level," but, in the last few decades, legal pluralism itself "has become a major topic in legal anthropology, legal sociology, comparative law, international law, and socio-legal studies". The Multi-Tiered Marriage Project calls for a national conversation on this interaction between state and non-state power with respect to jurisdiction over marriage and divorce. The political and legal battles over same-sex marriage seem to be one motivating factor in the demand for both forms of legal pluralism. Covenant marriage also reflects a congruence strategy: It harnesses state power to instantiate an ideal of marriage in keeping with Christian traditions about permanence and mutual sacrifice.

This analysis began with the question of how much progress has been made in gender equality in India over the past three decades where economic advances have been remarkable. This question was addressed through focusing on processes and outcomes in an Indian community where impressive gains in many areas had taken place over this period. Using social research methods, the challenges highlighted in the above quotation from The Hindu were examined. Areas of progress and stagnation with respect to gender equality and son preference were identified. In this chapter the findings of this study are briefly discussed in the light of the above-mentioned question. The policy implications of these findings are then explored, and a number of recommendations made, for addressing the challenges noted above and in the previous chapters.

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Offspring is expected in marriage, in Hinduism the purpose of marriage, namely in the book of Manawa Dharmasastra, mentioned that praja (giving birth to offspring). But in reality in marriage not all the wishes that are expected will be achieved. In Bali marriages that do not have children generally perform the rapture of children. According to Balinese customary law the removal of children is generally a child who is raised from the purusha line (from the male lineage), the purpose of the child's rapture is to continue the offspring, responsibility in the form of rights and obligations. The appointment of children for a Hindu married couple who are Balinese,&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;Then the implementation of the child appointment process should follow the provisions of Hindu law, then Balinese customary law (awig-awig and pararem) that applies in each customary village in addition to also still referring to the process of child adoption procedures that have been regulated in the applicable legislation in Indonesia. Based on this background, the issues discussed can be formulated as follows: 1. How to regulate the shahnya rapture of children according to customary law, Hinduism and National Law. 2. How the process of carrying out the appointment of children in indigenous villages in Bali is studied from legal pluralism. concepts: harmonization of law, adoption of children, pluralism of law, theory using legal pluralism (John Griffiths) and living law theory (Eugene Ehrlich), type of empirical legal research, descriptive nature of research, type of data qualitative and sourced from primary data and secondary data, using methods of data collection, obsenvation, interview, and literature. Determination of informants using non probability sampling, the instrument used by mobile phones, management and qualitative and systematic descriptive analysis. The results of research 1) The regulation of the shahnya child appointment can be seen from 3 legal bases, namely national law, customary law, and religious law. 2) In the process of carrying out the adoption of children in indigenous villages in Bali on the point of view of legal pluralism, namely the combination of three basic legal rules, including national law, customary law (awig-awig and pararem), and religious law (Hindu law), where the three legal bases run simultaneously in the implementation of child adoption in harmony, and balance, so as to create a harmony of law in the implementation of child appointment in indigenous villages in Bali&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Keywords&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;em&gt;Harmonization of the Law, Adoption of the Child, Pluralism of Law&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

The coexistence of Islamic law, customary law, and the national legal system within empirical societies remains an ongoing phenomenon. The consequences of such legal pluralism have implications for the protection of women and children. This study aims to examine the dynamics of legal relationships, the determination of diverse laws among the people of Aceh and West Nusa Tenggara, and the factors influencing the contestation of legal choices that impact legal favoritism towards women and children. This study employed a juridical empirical legal research method with a legal pluralism approach. Data were obtained by means of in-depth interview and document study. The interviews were conducted with customary leaders, religious leaders, and academics, whilst document analysis included journal articles, laws, and relevant books. The study took place in two locations: Aceh and West Nusa Tenggara Provinces. The findings of the study reveal that the dynamics of the relationship between customary law, religious law, and state law run concurrently in the context of the application of family law and criminal law. Some members of the community follow customary law and religious law, while others follow state law. The determination of law among the people of Aceh and Lombok is based on the legal consciousness of the community concerned. The choice of law in societal reality has an impact on favoritism towards women and children. The choice of state law tends to guarantee legal certainty and can provide legal protection for women and children. Conversely, the choice of religious law and customary law may sometimes be detrimental to women and children.

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This article departs from the interlegality of marriage laws in Jambi society today, which discusses sumbong marriages. Sumbong marriage itself is a marriage that is legal according to religion, state, and custom. However, the ability to marry sumbong itself is considered valid by carrying out a customary settlement first, which was initially prohibited by customary law. The prohibition on marriage in Indonesia is contained in Article 8 of Law Number 1 of 1974 concerning Marriage and Article 39 of the Compilation of Islamic Law. Departing from this phenomenon, the author tries to examine the writing, which includes the implementation of marriage law in the Jambi community, the legal pluralism of the Jambi community, and the interlegality of customary, religious and state law in the marriage law of the Jambi community. The type of research carried out by the author is field research (Field Research) with qualitative methods. The nature of this research is analytical descriptive research. The approach used by the authors is a sociological empirical approach with interlegality. The author's findings clearly show that legal interactions in this tradition involve interactions between several laws, including religious, state, and customary laws used in sumbong marriage practices. By applying the legal interlegality theory approach, customary law, state law, and religious law become one unit. The concept of interlegality is found in adopting the values contained in the sumbong marriage tradition, whether based on state law, Islamic law, or Jambi customary law. This adoption process is based on the characteristics of the Jambi community's legal identity and its social environment, which is still steeped in customs, and the community also upholds the norms that apply in society and adheres firmly to "adat basandi syarak, syarak basandi kitabullah. "&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;