History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.341

v4.c63.t2.341

the rest is declared to be strīdhana'.¹⁵⁰⁰ The prima facie view (*pūrvapakṣa*) in Jai. VI. 1. 12 urges that what a woman gets by serving cooked food or by cutting clothes does not belong to her. The gifts from strangers here referred to are other than those made by a stranger before the nuptial fire or at the time of the bridal procession. This definition makes it clear that what is obtained even from a stranger by a maiden or by a woman who is a widow at the time of the gift is pure strīdhana. Devala says, 'maintenance (what was given for maintenance), ornaments, śulka (bride's gratuity), the profits of money-lending are a woman's strīdhana. She alone is entitled to enjoy it and the husband is not entitled to enjoy it except in the case of distress'.¹⁵⁰¹ Manu IX. 200 states, 'the heirs of the husband should not divide (among themselves) the ornaments worn by women during the lifetime of their husband; if they divide them they incur sin'. In the printed editions of Manu there is no comment of Medhātithi on this verse, but the V. R. (p. 509), V. C. p. 139, Dāyatattva p. 184 all say that acc. to Medhātithi even ornaments, though not donated expressly, become strīdhana, if worn with the husband's consent.¹⁵⁰² According to the Vaijayantī such ornaments should be assigned to the share of the woman's husband so that she alone might put them on and that it is not meant that such ornaments are not to be taken into account at all at the time of partition.