History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.121

v4.c63.t2.121

If after partitioning among themselves, one of the widows dies, the portion given to her comes to the other widow or widows i. e. there is survivorship among them and no one else can succeed to the husband's property as long as there is any widow alive and not remarried. Hindu Law does not favour the distribution of a deceased man's estate among his several relatives, as some other systems (like that of the Moslems) do. It gives the whole estate to one heir or one class of heirs to the exclusion of all others. It is greatly to the credit of the ancient Hindu Law that it boldly gave all the separate property of a deceased male to women, viz. to the widow and after her to the daughter in preference to the man's own father or brother or nephew. Attempts are now being made through the Legislature that even when there are sons, the widow and daughters of the deceased should be given shares. Though these efforts spring from the laudable motive of enlarging the rights of women, they do not deserve unqualified encouragement. They will produce friction, cause fragmentation of lands, make holdings uneconomic and it is extremely doubtful whether they are in the best interests of society or nation as a whole and whether the vast mass of Hindus want them. Prajāpati¹³⁶² says that the king should punish as thieves those sapiṇḍas and relatives that oppose or obstruct a widow in succeeding to her husband's estate.