The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c14.s2.70

c14.s2.70

There was one view that the express permission of the reversioners was an essential pre-requisite for such a transaction. It would be therefore better if the gift purported to be made jointly by the widow and the reversioners. Some inscriptions from south India show that this opinion was acted upon in practice on several occasions. Thus a 10th century epigraph from Mysore records a gift of land given by a widow and her brother-in-law (*E.C.*, XI, Holkere No. 33). The brother-in-law is obviously introduced here to show that the transaction had the full consent of the next reversioner. The widow alone could not have sold the property. A 12th century inscription from the same state records the donation given by a widow to a temple along with her brother-in-law and Śrīvaishṇavas. Here it is clear that the consent of not only the next reversioner but of the whole caste was deemed necessary to validate the transaction (*Ibid*, X, No. 100 A). A 13th century inscription from Madura district narrates how two childless widows wanted to give a garden to a temple, how their relations would not sanction the transaction, and how eventually they could achieve their object only by securing the permission of some other reversioners (*S. I. E. R.*, 1916, No. 401). It is quite clear from the above cases that the widow's estate was regarded as a limited one. The permission of the next reversioner, if not of the whole caste, was necessary to enable her to gift it even for a religious purpose.