The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c13.66

c13.66

Did Vijñāneśvara intend to invest women with full proprietary rights over the whole of his amplified Strīdhana? It is a great pity that he should not have specifically discussed this important question. We are therefore driven to mere inferences. It is possible to argue that there is nothing improbable in Vijñāneśvara having intended to give full rights to women even over the landed property acquired by inheritance or partition, and included in their Strīdhana. Women will get property by inheritance, usually when their husbands had separated from the joint family and died without leaving any male issues. The husband’s action in effecting a separation from the joint family had put an end to its interest in his separated share; Vijñāneśvara may well have felt that the widow should be allowed to have full powers over it. The most probable course, which the widow will usually adopt in such cases, would be to gift her Strīdhana to her daughters. These were also the next heirs, even if the property was not regarded as her Strīdhana. Her husband had already effected separation from the joint family, and so after the death of the widow, daughters were the next normal heirs. So there was no reason for Vijñāneśvara to curtail the powers of women over the property they had acquired by inheritance. As far as the share at partition is concerned, it must be noted that a woman could get it only when her husband or sons had themselves proceeded to divide the family property. When a share was given to the wife by the husband or to the mother by the sons, it was clearly intended that it was for her special and exclusive use. Society would have regarded it as an immoral procedure, if sons had proceeded to put fetters on the power of their aged and revered mother with reference to the share, which they had freely and voluntarily given to her. It is also significant that Vijñāneśvara, while concluding his discussion about the widow's right of inheritance, introduces a number of carefully worded qualifying clauses; but none of them even suggests that she was to be a limited heir¹.