Abstract

DEERE, CARMEN DIANA  and  LEON, MAGDALENA. From Marital Power to Economic and Patrimonial Violence in Colombia. Estud. Socio-Juríd [online]. 2021, vol.23, n.1, pp.219-251.  Epub May 29, 2022. ISSN 0124-0579.  https://doi.org/10.12804/revistas.urosario.edu.co/sociojuridicos/a.9900.

In Colombia's first legal code, the Spanish colonial legacy of gender inequality in marriage was summed up in the concept of marital power -the husband's legal authority over his wife and her property. It took nearly a century to legally dismantle it, to the point that a husband's control over the income and assets of his wife now constitutes economic and patrimonial violence. While economic and patrimonial violence has been recognized as a form of violence against women since 2008, survey data indicate a high incidence of this form of intimate partner violence particularly, among separated and divorced women, and those in consensual unions as compared to married women. This shows how difficult patriarchal control is to change culturally, and why this form of violence has received little institutional attention.

Keywords : women's property rights; intimate partner violence; legal reform.

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