A/HRC/29/40 criminalize marital rape.27 Domestic violence has a considerable impact on women, causing more deaths than civil wars and entailing much higher economic costs than those linked to homicides or civil wars.28 36. In some countries, legislative provisions strengthen patriarchal family structures, as well as the concomitant discrimination and violence against women. This is particularly true of provisions allowing rapists to marry their victims in order to escape legal proceedings and laws that exclude marital rape from the prohibition of rape under criminal law. In some contexts, only men are able to transmit their nationality to their foreign spouses and their children. This de jure inequality has considerable effects on women and their children because the State protection granted by citizenship is refused them de facto. 29 C. Legal sources of family law 37. Family law may derive from various legal sources in a State, such as constitutions, laws, judicial decisions, and religious and customary codes. However, States are required, under international human rights law, to respect, protect and realize women’s right to equality in the family, regardless of the source of family law. 38. National constitutions are generally the supreme law in most States and form the foundation of the State’s institutional and legal structures. They also provide the framework for the elimination of discrimination against women. An explicit constitutional guarantee of gender equality is fundamental to combating discrimination against women and girls in law and in practice. Many countries have already recognized and enshrined this principle of equality in their constitutional laws, and it is essential that it apply in all areas of law, including family law.30 39. Family law primarily addresses personal status and relations between family members. 40. In addition, secondary family law covers such areas as taxation, social security, retirement benefits, survivors’ benefits and the right to family reunification. 41. The three main systems of family law are secular law systems, religious law systems and plural systems. 1. Secular family law systems 42. In most countries, family law is regulated by secular codes that have been established by the State, under civil or common law systems, and have no basis in religious or customary norms. Secular family law was originally patriarchal. The very being or legal existence of the woman was “suspended during the marriage, or at least [was] incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband”.31 Married women had no capacity to conclude contracts or own property and were discriminated against as regards inheritance, divorce, 27 28 29 30 31 GE.15-07003 UN-Women, 2011–2012 Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice, 2011, pp. 32–34, available from: http://progress.unwomen.org/pdfs/EN_Report-Progress.pdf. Anke Hoeffler and James Fearon, “Conflict and Violence Assessment Paper”, Copenhagen Consensus Center, 2014. See A/HRC/23/50, paras. 84–86. UN-Women, 2011–2012 Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice, p. 24. William Blackstone, Commentaires sur les lois anglaises (Commentaries on the Laws of England), 1765, vol. II, translated from the English by N.M. Chompré, Paris, Bossange, Rey et Gravier, et Aillaud, 1822, p. 215. 11