History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.1128.2

v4.c63.1128.2

If the son acquires wealth with the help of ancestral funds, the father takes half of it, the acquirer gets two shares and the other sons one share each; if the son acquires wealth without using ancestral funds, the father and acquirer take two shares each and the others take nothing. Another meaning is that if the father is learned he takes half, but if he is not so, he takes only two shares. The V. P. (pp. 444-45) severely criticizes the Dāyabhāga for these remarks. The first inroad on the conception that the earnings of all in the family belonged to the head of the family was made in the times of the sūtras by the recognition of *vidyādhana* as separate property. Manu¹⁰⁹⁰ IX. 208 (= Viṣṇu Dh. S. 18. 42) states that what one (member of a joint family, a brother etc.) may acquire by his own labour without using (or without detriment to) paternal estate he shall not share with others if he does not desire to do so, because that acquisition was made by his own activity. Manu IX. 206 mentions besides *vidyādhana*, gifts from friends, gifts at the time of marriage and at *madhuparka* as the separate property of a person. Yāj. (II. 118-119) prescribes: 'whatever is acquired by a person himself without detriment to or expenditure of paternal wealth, gifts from friends, gifts at marriage, these are not liable to be divided among a man's coparceners;