[考博英語]2017考博英語閱讀題源經濟學人文章每日精析（九十四）_考博_旭晨教育

2017 考博英語 閱讀題源經濟學人文章每日精析（九十四）

考博英語閱讀大部分博士研究生招生院校都使用《經濟學人》雜志文章作為題源，旭晨教育考博頻道為考博生們將其中的文章進行深度分析，希望能提高大家的考博英語閱讀水平，讀懂長難句。

導讀

在非洲，一些偏遠落后地區，依然保留著一些封建古老不科學的習俗文化，寡婦和少女的命運也因此特別凄慘。

The rule of in-laws

姻親之律

Why African widows get evicted by their in-laws

為什么非洲遺孀被她們的姻親所拋棄

They’re old, they’re weak and they can’t prove they were married

她們年老又虛弱無力，無法證明她們曾經有過的婚姻關系

Jan 28th 2017

ACT IVIST, 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.

“活動家”、“煽動者”、“女權主義者”這些詞只是津巴布韋共和國前反對黨成員兼內閣大臣Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga的一些頭銜。沒有人認為她是一個好說話的人。然而，雖然有國內最好的律師幫她打官司，在她的丈夫去世之后，她還是被迫兩手空空地離開了她在13年婚姻生活中一直居住的家。

firebrand: n.煽動者

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，綠樹成蔭的芒特普萊森特郊區擁有三座房產。他們共享銀行賬戶以及幾輛汽車。在她丈夫的遺囑中，她也享有一部分的財產。然而，在她丈夫去世后，她幾乎身無分文，衣不蔽體，全部財產被她丈夫的兄弟姐妹，以及前段婚姻的子女所瓜分。Misihairabwi-Mushonga說：“典型看來，作為內閣大臣我無所不知，但是當我幡然醒悟時，我卻一無所有了。”

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的貧困反映了一個更深層次的問題：在津巴布韋，不僅政府會強占私人財產，姻親也會。數以萬計的婦女在她們的丈夫去世之后變得一貧如洗。本周，人權觀察(總部設在美國紐約)發表的一項報告顯示，數不勝數的案例表明，津巴布韋的寡婦失去了她們的家園，她們數年來辛勤耕作的土地，甚至是果樹上的果實也被剝奪。

Human Rights Watch：人權觀察是一個非政府的國際組織，總部設在美國紐約，以調查、促進人權問題為主旨。

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.

人權觀察組織說，這種情況在很多國家都很常見。根據另一個非政府組織---魯巴基金會統計出的數據，大約有三千八百萬寡婦處于極度貧窮狀態。這種情況之所以在津巴布韋很突出是因為這里的人均壽命短，并且男人，尤其是富裕的男人，更愿意娶比自己年齡小得多的女人。所以這個國家的寡婦數量格外多，國家60歲以上的女性人口中，一半以上都失去過丈夫。

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.)

盡管有法律明文保護年長女人免遭姻親剝奪財產，但是姻親對她們的財產的剝奪從未停止過。而這是因為津巴布韋法律體系中的兩個奇特之處，第一處便是傳統習俗中遺留下來的“妻子繼承制”或“kugara nhaka”，在津巴布韋的某些地方，一位寡婦(包含她的全部財產)都由丈夫的弟弟繼承(這一習俗導致了艾滋病的廣泛傳播)。

Predatory: adj.捕食性的，壓榨他人的

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.

盡管現在，寡婦不再被“繼承”，但她們的房子和財產還是會被“過繼”。而這就是因為津巴布韋法律體系中的另一個特點，這是因為法律只對那些能證明自己的婚姻情況的婦女生效從而限制姻親。但是在津巴布韋鄉村，80%的婚姻是“約定俗成”的，并沒有任何的書面文件證明，所以，寡婦們想要通過法院阻止姻親之間的財產掠奪行為，必須由姻親承認他們的婚姻關系。鑒于之間的利害關系，許多人做假證，否認事實。人權觀察組織的達尼·布朗說：“寡婦被迫要依靠過世丈夫家人的證明，如果這些人作偽證，他們就能夠獲得財產”。

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.

她們通常年老體弱，更容易受人擺布。

push around: 呼來喝去，任人擺布

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.

要解決問題不是出臺新的法律條款，而是增加現有成文法律的條款。Misihairabwi-Mushonga認為，只要傳統的婚姻規則還存在，寡婦的現狀就不會有改變。