This rule empowers the man to be in charge of administering the assets and inheritances of the woman he marries.
“All women need a man”. This is how Sonia Arce begins to tell what is one of the most serious inequalities that women have suffered in Chile for 168 years.
This is because the Marital Partnership Law, which was created with the Civil Code in 1855 and is in force to this day, establishes that the man is in charge of administering the assets and inheritances of the woman he marries. Regulations that even discriminate against single women, by forcing them to notarize their marital status, unlike men.
Sonia Arce began experiencing this discrimination 20 years ago, when her parents died and she could not manage or sell the house she had inherited, since she could not obtain the signature of her ex-husband, to whom she was still legally married.
For this reason, he decided to sue the State before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In 2007, Chile committed to eliminating the law, a situation that has not changed.
International Women’s Day
Marital partnership regime: how it discriminates against women
In conversation with THE DYNAMOCarolina Araya, director of Law at UDLA Concepción, explained how this regime works and what the main inequalities are.
“The marital partnership is one of the three ways in which a married couple can manage assets, both in their relationships among themselves and with third parties. In the case of a marital partnership it is the husband who administers them, including his own, the common and those of the womanwhether acquired before or during marriage,” commented the academic.
In that sense, Carolina Araya indicated that “the main disadvantage of this law is that the husband is the one who manages all the assets. The woman has no participation in it.”
The law adds that in a marital partnership it is possible for the woman to have her own assets and for it to be administered by her, only if it is obtained as a result of your work or profession.
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What has happened with the modifications to the marital partnership?
In December of last year, the Senate Women and Gender Equality Commission sent to the room the bill that modifies the Marital Partnership Regime of marriage.
The initiative, which has been in Congress since 2008seeks to establish full equality between spouses in the administration of social assets, as well as to effectively recognize the total capacity of women to manage their assets.
Danitza Pérez Cáceres, academic at the Diego Portales University and former executive director of the Association of Feminist Lawyers (Abofem), pointed out to THE DYNAMO that this “has been a project that has been in Congress for many years and Its processing has been very long mainly because there has been no agreement on how to modify the law“.
“Although it is a project that has been committed for many years, the visions of what the best form of administration of common goods should be It’s been a long discussion. that from time to time it is resumed, discussed and paused,” lamented the lawyer.
“We hope that this year we will finally have the modification to the marital partnership and that with this, we will be able to begin to erase the last legal vestiges of discrimination that there is towards women”, concluded Danitza.
Thus, what was promised to Sonia Arce could be fulfilled, a testimony that is part of the I Need A Man campaign, by Corporación Humanas.
