Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.846

c7.846

If the owner of the Stridhana has children, it should be transmitted to the daughters; we have therefore here a line of heirs exclusively composed of females as in the case of the famous "Gerade" of the German law; yet it may well be assumed that on failure of daughters the sons were to inherit the Stridhana. If a woman dies childless, enquiries are to be made as to whether she was married according to one of the four higher or lower forms of marriage (§ 16); in the former case her Stridhana goes to the husband, in the latter, it reverts to the father. The husband should accordingly suffer a loss of property if he is not married according to one of the orthodox forms, for in such cases his marriage (cf. Nār. 12, 29) is not considered to be so firmly established as in the case of the higher forms of marriage; it should also be remembered in this connection that the Āsura marriage is the most usual of all the lower forms and that the Śulka coming from this form of marriage originally went to the father to whom it should also revert through heirship. Y. 2, 142-144 (cf. 117) agrees mainly with Vi. and also M. 9, 131, 194, 196f., Nār. 3 1, 8 f. etc., lay down similar laws and the Mah. 13, 45, 12 (=M. 9, 131) too expresses the same views. That the daughters should inherit the ornaments and the dowry of the mother or in general her Stridhana, is mentioned also by Baudh. 2, 3, 43, Vas. 17, 46, Gaut. 28, 24; but Gaut. (cf. Bṛh. 25, 86; M. 9, 131) says it with the interesting note that it should primarily go to the unmarried daughters who are naturally in need of maintenance and only secondarily to poor married daughters.