The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c14.s2.74

c14.s2.74

While pleading for an unrestricted power to the widow to make gifts for religious purposes, Mitramiśra, a 17th century jurist of the United Provinces, uses some expressions, suggesting that he was half inclined to sanction bona fide sales or gifts made even for non-religious purposes. 'To those who contend' says he, 'that women have no right to sell or gift away their husbands' inheritance, we ask ; do you mean to maintain that even if the gift or sale in question has already become an accomplished fact, it would become invalid merely because it was made by a woman? This is unfair....Texts prohibiting sales etc. refer to the disposal of landed property made to vicious persons with the malicious purpose of defeating the rights of coparceners. They do not invalidate gifts etc. properly made. *Ownership gives the right of disposal as much over the immoveables as over the moveables, and an accomplished transaction cannot be unsettled even by a hundred sacred texts*¹. This principle would have undoubtedly invested the widow with full rights of disposal even over immoveable property. But Mitramiśra not only does not draw its natural corollary, but proceeds immediately to circumscribe its application. For he concludes his discussion with the observation, ‘It therefore follows that a widow can dispose of her immoveable property either for making a religious gift or for maintaining herself or for other proved necessities;²’ he does not add ‘or for any other purpose she may like.’ In spite of his liberal principles Mitramiśra was thus prepared to invest the widow just with those powers, which have been recognised in modern courts. It is clear that society was not yet prepared to grant the widow an unrestricted power over her immoveable inheritance.