The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c13.18

c13.18

The theory of joint ownership helped the wife only in securing a number of minor rights and privileges. It invested her with an absolute right of maintenance against the husband. A verse attributed to Manu, but not to be found in the extant *Manusmṛiti*, goes to the extent of declaring that the husband ought to maintain the wife, even if there were no family property. He may have recourse even to questionable means, if there was no other alternative². The husband could not proceed on a journey without making proper provision for her maintenance and the household expenditure. If he married a second wife, the first one had to be properly provided for. If the wife had the misfortune of being assaulted, the liability of the husband to maintain her did not come to an end³. Early jurists no doubt held it improper for a wife to vindicate her claims against the husband in a court of law; later jurists like Vijñāneśvara, however, differed from this view and maintained that if a husband abandons a virtuous wife, or wilfully misappropriates her property and refuses to restore it, she