(2017) 1 African Human Rights Yearbook 13 woman to the man’s family creates a huge problem of belonging and identity for her. Upon being given away into marriage, the woman finds herself ‘caught in-between’ two families, her marital family and her natal family. The paradox is that henceforth she fully belongs to neither family. On the one hand, she is not integrated into her marital family. She is no doubt part and parcel of her nuclear family. But she is inconsequential in relation to her husband’s extended family. She does not fully belong there because she is linked to that family only by mere affinity and not by blood. Precisely because of that, when her husband dies her in-laws move in and grab the household items, considered as belonging to the deceased. Female migration or patrilocality in effect transforms the woman into an ‘outsider’ in her matrimonial home. Her marital affairs become subject to interference by her in-laws. This often leads to misunderstandings and conflicts between husband and wife, and between wife and in-laws particularly mother-in-law and sister-inlaw. These clashes often arise over attempts to control her reproductive capacity (she must have children or so many children or at least one male child), over attempts by her in-laws to have unhindered access to her home, over family finances, and over household property which sisters-in-law quickly grab upon the death of their brother.40 On the other hand, the married woman also ceases to belong fully to her natal family. Before her marriage she was in fact regarded as a temporary family member destined to marry, leave her natal family and join that of her husband. When she marries she thus becomes something of an ‘outsider’ in relation to her natal family. It is generally considered culturally shameful to accept her back when her marriage fails or when she seeks to escape domestic violence. Partly for this reason, and partly in the interest of the children she may have had with her husband, many women endure hardship and violence in their marriage rather than seek refuge in their natal family. This unavoidable situation in which the married woman finds herself in a patriarchal society traps her in a setting in which she may easily be killed by her own husband or become victim of ‘honour killing’ by a member of her own family. 3.2 Cultural practices Culturally, sub-Sahara Africa is largely homogeneous although some variations exist in the practice of specific customs. Also, since the African society is by and large patriarchal, power is vested in men who, as a result, have control over women and dominate them in all spheres of life, private and public. As a consequence of these cultural dictates, women lack autonomy and cannot therefore make independent 40 J Mvula-Mwenda ‘Property-grabbing under African customary law: repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience, yet a troubling reality’ (2005) 37 George Washington International Law Review 949; WLSA (n 36 above) 77; E Stanko Intimate intrusions: women’s experiences of male violence (1985).