By law, mothers and fathers in Tanzania have equal rights in regard to parental authority, and there is no known legislation restricting women from becoming heads of households.^[8] However, in its latest report to the Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the government indicated that, in practice, discriminate against women continues at the household level especially, noting that “[m]ost communities in Tanzania are essentially patriarchal, whereby traditional norms, practices, and attitudes are centred on male domination”.^[9]  Further, men and women are not equally responsible for the financial management of household resources, under the Law of Marriage Act.^[10] As reported by IFAD, the Act also allows for polygamous non-registered marriages; the first wife may however formally object if the second marriage causes hardship for her and her children.^[11]According to the joint NGO shadow report presented to CEDAW in 2008, the Law of Marriage Act is also discriminatory on several other grounds, including: Section 114, (2) (a), which requires the law to take into consideration customs of a community when dividing marital properties during divorce, many of which are discriminatory towards women; Section 125 (2) (c), which requires the court to consider the customs of the community when taking deciding custody matters after divorce, again, many of which are discriminatory toward women and; Sections 163-163, which tacitly allow a husband to beat his wife by requiring a very high burden of proof for crimes of bodily injury and other forms of domestic violence.^[12] The shadow report indicates that the Law of Marriage Act is also discriminatory in that only men are allowed to sue their wives for desertion – women are not allowed to sue their husbands for the same and, similarly, women are the only ones to be viewed as adulterers under the law.^[13]

Rules 27 and 28 provide that a widow has no share in her husband’s estate if there are issues of the union and the husband cannot inherit from his wife who dies intestate, unless the wife left no children or any member of her own family. The law does not provide women equal inheritance rights as daughters.  Under the Local Customary Law Declaration Order, No.4 (1963) males inherit movable and immovable properties absolutely, but females inherit immovable property only for their use during their life time. They cannot sell such immovable property unless there are no male members in the family. ^[14]

The Law of Marriage Act provides that a marriage can be monogamous or polygamous, where in a polygamous union a man may be married to more than one woman.^[15]

According to the 1971 Law of Marriage Act (article 99), either spouse may initiate divorce.^[16]