The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c14.s2.57

c14.s2.57

To understand Jīmūtavāhana’s reluctance to grant to the widow a full estate in her inheritance, we shall have to discuss the history of the question. The early jurists, like Vishṇu and Yājñavalkya, who have recognised the widow as an heir, have nowhere used any expressions to show that they regarded her as a limited heir. It is therefore possible to argue that they intended to invest her with the same full powers which they granted to other heirs like the son, the father or the brother, whom they have mentioned along with her. In the long discussion of the subject in the *Mitāksharā*, Vijñāneśvara also nowhere states or hints that the widow was a limited heir, having no right to dispose of the corpus of the property. In the concluding sentence of his discussion he states, ‘Therefore the chaste and regularly married wife of a person, who has died without leaving behind any sons, and who had separated from’ the jonint family and not reunited with it, inherits his entire property¹. He has introduced here several qualifying adjectives, very carefully chosen; but there is none to suggest that he regarded the widow’s estate as a limited one.