Property Rights of Women: A Case Study of Political Empowerment of Women with Reference To Khasi and Assamese Society

Abstract

Property right is the permanent guarantor of economic sustenance. Economic assurance and political participation coincide with the empowerment of women. Being a Matrilineal society, the Khasi tribe of Meghalaya licenses the inheritance right to women, while the patriarchal system in Assamese Society forbids women to acquire property rights. Since the previous studies do not exhibit the inherent association among economic right, property right and political right, therefore the cornerstone of the present study is to show the conjoining character among these rights and further progresses with reflecting this interrelation in the political participation of women in both divergent Khasi and Assamese societies. For this purpose both ‘qualitative and quantitative methods’ have been used with ‘comparative analysis’ between Khasi and Assamese Society. The elaboration of the study can be concluded with the findings that owning property right provides economic autonomy which in turn helps to increase the bargaining power. Moreover, the study also discovers that although the women in Khasi society enjoy high social status because of having privilege in the inheritance right, yet the customary bigotry and prejudices limit their political participation.