History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.146

v4.c63.t2.146

Raghunandana in his comment on the Dāyabhāga makes the position about unchaste daughters quite clear¹³⁷⁹. The smṛtis give preference among daughters to an unmarried daughter i. e. to a daughter who is a virgin (*kumārī*). It has been held by the Indian High Courts that though chastity is not required in the case of daughters to entitle them to inherit, yet in a competition between a married daughter and a daughter who was never married, but became a concubine or prostitute, the latter would be postponed to the former as the latter is not a virgin though unmarried. Some smṛtis like Parāśara¹³⁸⁰ employ the word *kumārī* in speaking of daughters' succession, while others employ the word '*kanyā*', but both words are synonymous. In *Govind v. Bhiku* 46 Bom. L. R. 699, where a man died leaving as heirs a married daughter and another daughter who never married, but was living as the permanent concubine of another man, it was held that the latter cannot inherit the property of her sonless father to the exclusion of or along with his married daughter. The old texts speak of only unmarried daughters and married daughters and prefer the former to the latter. Medhātithi on Manu IX. 132 says that *kanyā* means a girl who has had no sexual intercourse with any man. The Mit. makes three classes of daughters succeed one after another viz. (1) unmarried daughter, (2) indigent married daughter, (3) well-to-do married daughter. Judicial decisions have added a fourth variety viz. unmarried daughter who has become a prostitute. This fourth class being a new one must be placed after the other three classes expressly mentioned by the texts and commentaries on the basis of the maxim (intruders or uninvited persons must be seated at the end of or after those that are specially invited) noted by Śabara on Jai. V. 2. 19 and X. 5. 1 and by Śaṅkara on Vedāntasūtra IV. 3. 3 and employed by the V. Mayūkha (text p. 143) for settling the place of the paternal grandmother after the brother's son.