History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.361

v4.c63.t2.361

It is beyond the scope of this work to go deeply into modern caselaw. But it is necessary to show how the Indian Courts have in modern times dealt with strīdhana as defined by the commentators. It may be said at once that the inclusion by the Mit. of property inherited by a woman or obtained at a partition under strīdhana has been totally discarded by the Privy Council for all provinces in India except Bombay¹⁵¹². A woman may inherit property from a male, such as from her husband, father or son or she may inherit property from a female, that is, from her mother, daughter &c. Both these kinds of property are strīdhana according to the Mit., but the Privy Council has held as to both these kinds that they are not strīdhana; e. g. if a daughter inherits property from her father or inherits the strīdhana property of her mother, it does not become her strīdhana, that on the death of the daughter, the property does not pass to *her* heirs, but to the next heir of the person from whom she inherited it. The Bombay school makes a distinction. If a woman enters a family by marriage and then inherits to a male of that family (as e. g. a widow succeeding to her husband, a mother to her son or a predeceased son's widow to her father-in-law), the property she inherits is not her strīdhana, she takes only a limited estate in it and on her death it passes to the next heir of the male from whom she inherited. But if a woman inherits from a male belonging to the family in which she was born (e. g. a daughter succeeding to her father, a sister to her brother) or if a woman inherits property from a female, the property so inherited becomes her strīdhana (in Bombay). As to property acquired by a wife or mother on partition¹⁵¹³, it has been held by the Privy Council that it is not strīdhana even in provinces governed by the Mitākṣarā (including Bombay).