Women Inheritance In The Ibibio Traditional Society

This paper is aimed at evaluating the women inheritance practices in Ibibio traditional society with reference to change and continuity. Inheritance, which involves the transfer of property from parents to heirs, is a normative experience which every, family regardless of sociocultural settings, must experience to ensure that family and social system are fulfilled. However, the transfer of properties from older generations to the younger generation has become a major problem in African society. It was a tradition of the people in Ibibio that female children must not inherit any property such as lands, houses from the family nor widows at the demise of their husbands, but in recent times, it seems the practice has changed. The gap this work sets out to fill therefore is to discover if truly this practice has changed. This paper adopts historical approach. To enrich the work with vital facts, oral interview was equally conducted. From the information gathered, it is discovered that women inheritance in traditional Ibibio society has changed over-time as women are now given full fledged freedom to inherit property of all kinds. This paper recommends that parents should not place or prioritize a gender 
above the other in privileges and inheritance right. This is important because both male and female children have their responsibilities based on financial status, not gender.

本文旨在评估伊比比奥传统社会中的女性继承实践，重点关注其变迁与延续。继承涉及财产从父母向继承人的转移，是一种规范性经验——无论社会文化背景如何，每个家庭都必须经历这一过程，以确保家庭及社会系统的功能得以实现。然而，财产代际转移已成为非洲社会面临的核心问题之一。伊比比奥传统中，女性子女不得继承家庭财产（如土地、房屋），寡妇在丈夫离世后亦无权继承财产；但近年来，这一实践似乎已发生转变。因此，本研究的核心目标是厘清该实践是否确实发生了变化。本文采用历史研究方法，为充实研究内容并获取关键事实，还开展了口头访谈。从收集到的信息可见，传统伊比比奥社会的女性继承制度已随时间演变，女性如今获得了继承各类财产的充分权利。本文建议，父母在特权分配与继承权赋予方面不应偏袒任一性别。这一建议至关重要，因为子女的责任承担应基于经济状况而非性别差异。