Brideprice
Brideprice is money, property, or services paid by a groom or his family to the family of the bride.
Common Ownership
Common ownership is a form of shared tenure (see definition for shared tenure). More than one person or organization owns land or other property—each person owns a portion of the whole, divided equally unless otherwise stated.
Communal Tenure
Communal tenure is a form of shared tenure (see definition for shared tenure). A group holds secure and exclusive collective rights to own, manage and/or use land and natural resources.
Compulsory Acquisition
Compulsory acquisition is the power a government holds to acquire private rights in land without the willing consent of its owner or occupant in order to benefit society.
Consensual Union
A consensual union is when two people choose to live together as if they were married, but their relationship is not recognized legally.
Customary Rights
Customary rights are rights acquired by custom and recognized by all inhabitants of a particular place.
Dowry
A dowry is money, goods, land or other possessions that a woman brings into a marriage with her; very often paid by her family and sometimes paid to the groom’s family.
Family Law
Family law is a body or collection of laws dealing with matters related to the family; i.e., marriage, divorce, child custody.
Heir
Heir means any individual that inherits property by will or by law.
Inter Vivos Gift
An inter vivos gift is a gift made during the owner’s life.
Intestate
Intestate is when a person has died without a written or oral record of how and to whom his/her assets should be divided.
Joint Ownership or Joint Tenure
Joint ownership or joint tenure is a form of shared tenure (see definition for shared tenure). More than one person or legal entity owns land or other property—each person owns the whole of the property, undivided.
Land Tenure Security
Land tenure is defined as the legal or customary institutional relationships among people with respect to land. These relationships define how rights to own, use, access, control, and transfer land are governed. Though the term is often assumed to be synonymous with ownership, land tenure is more properly understood as a bundle of different property rights in land which can include the right to own, use, sell, gift, bequeath, mortgage, and transfer land. Land tenure—the bundle of rights to land—is often described as being secure or insecure, though in practice, land tenure security is more accurately understood as existing along…
Legal Rights
Legal rights are a power, privilege, demand, or claim possessed by a particular person by virtue of law.
Marital Property
Marital property is all property or other assets belonging to both spouses.
Matrilineal
Matrilineal means tracing descent through the maternal line.
Matrilocal
Matrilocal means located at or centered around the residence of the wife’s family or people.
Patrilineal
Patrilineal means tracing descent through the paternal line.
Patrilocal
Patrilocal means located at or centered around the residence of the husband’s family or people.
Personal Law
Personal law is a body or collection of laws dealing with an individual and his or her family.
Polygamy
Polygamy is a marriage that includes more than two partners.
Presumed Common or Joint Ownership
Presumed common or joint ownership (defined above) is, by law, the default property regime for marital couples unless otherwise stated in law. That is, all property acquired after marriage is presumed to be the common or joint ownership of the married couple unless it fits into a legal exception.
Right of Survivorship
Right of survivorship is the right of a surviving joint tenant to take ownership of a deceased joint tenant’s share of the property. No will is required to transfer the property to the joint tenant.
Shared Tenure
The broad category of rights to land and housing shared by two or more people. Shared tenure can be formal or informal. Formal shared tenure conventionally refers to co-ownership or co-lease rights. Shared tenure also includes land and/or housing which is owned, leased or occupied in shares by larger groups, such as through family tenure, community titling, women’s groups and co-operatives, or by couples who each hold a portion of property together, but which do not necessarily constitute equal shares to this property.
Succession
Succession is the right and transmission of the rights and obligations of the deceased to his/her heirs.
Universal Common or Joint Ownership
Universal common or joint ownership means that all property brought into a marriage or acquired during a marriage is considered held in common or joint ownership (see definition of shared tenure), no matter when or how it was acquired.
Use Rights
Use rights are a legal right to use land for any specified period of time without legal ownership of land.
Wife Inheritance
A relative of a deceased husband marries the widow. Wife inheritance is also known as widow inheritance, bride inheritance, and levirate marriage.