History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.93.2

v4.c63.t2.93.2

15) prescribes that the wealth of a man dying without issue goes to his brothers, failing them the parents take it or the eldest wife.¹³⁴⁴ Devala (q. by the Dāyabhāga XI. 1. 17-18 and V. R. p. 593) arranges the heirs in order as full brothers, daughters, father, half brothers, mother and wife. It may be noticed that in the days of Kālidāsa the sonless widow did not succeed to the wealth of her deceased husband, but was only entitled to maintenance and that the estate escheated to the king. This is clear from the letter written by the minister to king Duṣyanta about the wealth of a merchant who perished in a ship-wreck (Act VI). Yāj. and Viṣṇu among smṛti writers were probably the first to clearly enunciate the rule that the wife was the foremost heir of a man dying without male issue. Bṛ. makes the wife the first heir of a sonless man and supports his opinion with reasons. He says:¹³⁴⁵ 'In the Veda and in the doctrines of the smṛtis and in popular usage the wife is declared to be half the body of the husband, equally sharing the consequences of good and evil acts. Of him whose wife is not dead half the body survives. How can another obtain the property, while half the body (of the deceased) lives? Although kinsmen, although his father, mother or his relatives may be alive, the wife of a man dying without issue succeeds to his share. A wife dying before her husband takes away his sacred fires (i. e. she is cremated with the sacred Vedic fires, if he be an Agnihotrin);