【经济学人】姻亲之律丨2017.01.28丨总第797期

ACTIVIST, firebrand and feminist are just a few of the terms used to describe Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, a former opposition MP and cabinet minister in Zimbabwe. No one would call her a pushover. Yet despite her connections and some of the country’s finest lawyers arguing her case, after her husband’s death she was forced empty-handed out of her matrimonial home of 13 years.

 “活动家”、“煽动者”、“女权主义者”这些词只是津巴布韦共和国前反对党成员兼内阁大臣Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga的一些头衔。没有人认为她是一个好说话的人。然而，虽然有国内最好的律师帮她打官司，在她的丈夫去世之后，她还是被迫两手空空地离开了她在13年婚姻生活中一直居住的家。

• firebrand: n.煽动者

津巴布韦

Before Ms Misihairabwi-Mushonga was widowed she and her late husband owned three houses, including one in the leafy suburb of Mt Pleasant in the north of Harare. They shared bank accounts and owned several cars. Some of this was left to her in a will. Yet after her husband’s death Ms Misihairabwi-Mushonga lost almost everything, even her clothes, to her late husband’s brother, various other in-laws and his children from an earlier marriage. “I am a typical example of a person who had access to information, a minister, but yet I woke up with nothing,” she says.

在Misihairabwi-Mushonga丈夫去世之前，她和她的丈夫在哈拉雷北部，绿树成荫的芒特普莱森特郊区拥有三座房产。他们共享银行账户以及几辆汽车。在她丈夫的遗嘱中，她也享有一部分的财产。然而，在她丈夫去世后，她几乎身无分文，衣不蔽体，全部财产被她丈夫的兄弟姐妹，以及前段婚姻的子女所瓜分。Misihairabwi-Mushonga说：“典型看来，作为内阁大臣我无所不知，但是当我幡然醒悟时，我却一无所有了。”

Her destitution illustrates a wider problem. It is not only the government that grabs other people’s stuff in Zimbabwe. In-laws do it, too. Tens of thousands of widows are stripped of their property after the death of their husbands. A report released this week by Human Rights Watch (HRW), an outfit based in New York, documents numerous cases of Zimbabwean widows losing their homes, the land that they had tended for years and even the fruit growing on their trees.

Misihairabwi-Mushonga的贫困反映了一个更深层次的问题：在津巴布韦，不仅政府会强占私人财产，姻亲也会。数以万计的妇女在她们的丈夫去世之后变得一贫如洗。本周，人权观察（总部设在美国纽约）发表的一项报告显示，数不胜数的案例表明，津巴布韦的寡妇失去了她们的家园，她们数年来辛勤耕作的土地，甚至是果树上的果实也被剥夺。

• Human Rights Watch：人权观察是一个非政府的国际组织，总部设在美国纽约，以调查、促进人权问题为主旨。

Such abuses are common in many countries, HRW says. The Loomba Foundation, another NGO, estimates that 38m widows are extremely poor. In Zimbabwe the problem is acute because of short lifespans and the tendency of men to marry much younger women, particularly if they are rich. So the country has an alarming number of widows: more than half of women older than 60 have buried at least one husband.

人权观察组织说，这种情况在很多国家都很常见。根据另一个非政府组织---鲁巴基金会统计出的数据，大约有三千八百万寡妇处于极度贫穷状态。这种情况之所以在津巴布韦很突出是因为这里的人均寿命短，并且男人，尤其是富裕的男人，更愿意娶比自己年龄小得多的女人。所以这个国家的寡妇数量格外多，国家60岁以上的女性人口中，一半以上都失去过丈夫。

The dispossession of old women continues despite laws that, on paper, protect them from predatory in-laws. This is thanks to two quirks in Zimbabwe’s legal system. The first is a hangover from a tradition of “wife inheritance” or “kugara nhaka” whereby, in some parts of Zimbabwe, a widow (and thus all her property) is inherited by her husband’s brother. (This custom helped HIV spread like wildfire.)

尽管有法律明文保护年长女人免遭姻亲剥夺财产，但是姻亲对她们的财产的剥夺从未停止过。而这是因为津巴布韦法律体系中的两个奇特之处，第一处便是传统习俗中遗留下来的“妻子继承制”或“kugara nhaka”，在津巴布韦的某些地方，一位寡妇（包含她的全部财产）都由丈夫的弟弟继承（这一习俗导致了艾滋病的广泛传播）。

• Predatory: adj.捕食性的，压榨他人的

• Quirk: n.怪事，奇事

Although wives are no longer handed over these days, their homes and property still are. This is because the laws restraining in-laws only apply to women who can prove that they were married. But as many as 80% of marriages in the countryside are “customary” and not registered in writing anywhere, so widows going to court to enforce their rights end up having to ask their in-laws to confirm that they were indeed married. Given the loot at stake, many refuse to testify honestly. “Widows are forced to rely on the husband’s family, who stand to gain if they deny that the marriage took place,” says Bethany Brown of HRW.

尽管现在，寡妇不再被“继承”，但她们的房子和财产还是会被“过继”。而这就是因为津巴布韦法律体系中的另一个特点，这是因为法律只对那些能证明自己的婚姻情况的妇女生效从而限制姻亲。但是在津巴布韦乡村，80%的婚姻是“约定俗成”的，并没有任何的书面文件证明，所以，寡妇们想要通过法院阻止姻亲之间的财产掠夺行为，必须由姻亲承认他们的婚姻关系。鉴于之间的利害关系，许多人做假证，否认事实。人权观察组织的达尼·布朗说：“寡妇被迫要依靠过世丈夫家人的证明，如果这些人作伪证，他们就能够获得财产”。

Many widows can’t get their property back without a lawyer, and can’t afford a lawyer until they get their property back. That they are often old and weak makes them even easier to push around.

（期待您的翻译，明天会有针对这句话的长难句解析哟~）她们通常年老体弱，更容易受人摆布。

• push around: 呼来喝去，任人摆布

Solving the problem is not a question of passing new legislation but of extending the rule of written laws. Ms Misihairabwi-Mushonga predicts that widows will continue to be dispossessed so long as traditional views on marriage hold sway.

要解决问题不是出台新的法律条款，而是增加现有成文法律的条款。Misihairabwi-Mushonga认为，只要传统的婚姻规则还存在，寡妇的现状就不会有改变。

翻译 ▍栏目六第一组

审核 ▍Arias

编辑 ▍Joi