compared to 72.09 years in India as a whole. The infant mortality rate is 7 per 1,000 live births in Kerala, as opposed to 28 in India. Another indicator of gender equality and women's health is the maternal mortality rate, which is 53.59 per 100,000 live births in Kerala and 178.35 in the rest of India. Historically, women in Kerala are thought to have possessed more autonomy relative to other Indian states, which is often attributed to its matrilineal structure which ultimately changed into a patrilineal system in the 20th century. Matriliny, in which property was inherited collectively through the female line, was largely practiced by the Hindu Nair caste as well as some other upper-caste Hindus such as the Ezhavas and even some Muslims, who are exclusively patriarchal in other parts of India. However, Christian succession laws in the early 20th century in Kerala were severely restrictive against women. For instance, unmarried daughters could only claim between a quarter and a third of each son's share of paternal property, or 5,000 rupees, whichever was less, if the father died without making a will. In all other instances, daughters' inheritances were restricted to dowries. These laws were challenged when Mary Roy, a Syrian Christian woman who had not received a dowry sued her brother to gain equal access to their inheritance. She ultimately won the case and it was considered a landmark ruling for female succession. Beginning in the 1920s, the Hindu matriarchal system fragmented, especially once the Travancore Nayar Regulation Act of 1925 was passed, which was initiated by the British and began the transition to a strictly patriarchal structure. By the 1970s, the matrilineal system had virtually disappeared and the Kerala family organization became exclusively patrilineal and women's rights to property were significantly restricted. Though women in Kerala are highly educated, recent studies have called attention to the "gender paradox" in Kerala, in which despite the literacy and education of women in Kerala, they are still oppressed in similar or greater regards by the patriarchy relative to other Indian states. Societal and cultural norms are argued by scholars to continue to restrict women's freedoms and maintain their subservience to men both at home and in the labor market. High female unemployment rates, discrimination in the labor market, and elevated female suicide rates and gender-based violence, are all indicators of the "gender paradox" in Kerala. In addition, the persistence