Shaping Land Rights: Tenurial Class, Lineage, and Gender in Malerkotla, India

Abstract

The subject of women's rights and title to land has, once again, assumed center stage. In the wake of concerns about the feminization of rural poverty, the question of land rights for women is pressing. This paper delineates the differential modes and implications of self-acquiring and inheriting arable lands within the tenurial classes of the former princely state of Malerkotla in the Sangrur district of Punjab, India. It examines the pattern of legal titles to land from 1890 onwards based largely on the information yielded by the local-level revenue records at Malerkotla and then focuses on the rights of women in the context of the pre-eminently patrilineal transmission of rights in land. Finally, it explores the significance of this enquiry for land and gender studies and possible social interventions.

Keywords:

• Land rights
• women
• legal title
• gender
• inheritance
• India