Botswana women now allowed to inherit

While our laws of inheritance may not be especially clear to those who don't have much contact with them, they protect a lot of rights that we take for granted. Imagine how hard it would be on women, for example, if they were not allowed to inherit the family home. That was the law in Botswana until a few days ago, when their high court contradicted years of tradition and held that women do have the right to inherit. To read the complete news story from BBC, click here.

This is great progress for women, and for the families they have to raise alone if their husbands have passed away. To me, this is what inheritance law should do - protect people who are vulnerable in the absence of their loved ones.

The attached photo is from AFP, from www.bbc.co.uk.

Nice girls talk about estate planning

When you think about the fact that 42% of women are widowed but only 14% of men are widowed, you can see how profoundly estate-planning affects women. This is the main idea behind an excellent article by Deborah Jacobs in http://www.forbes.com/. You should read it if you are a woman, or if you are a man with a wife or daughter. Click here to read the article.

Sisters need to do it for themselves

This new post from http://www.allaboutestates.ca/ talks about estate planning particularly for women. Women make a sub-group of people who need to be involved in proper estate planning because statistically women still outlive men. Click here to read the article for some helpful information.