DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49827#0096
ACCORDING TO THE SMRITIS.
81
while introducing Sati into the Brahmanical system, Lecture
mitigated the harshness of this practice considerably by Iv-
declaring its performance as optional and prohibiting it
altogether in certain cases, such as that of a pregnant
woman or the mother of an infant child. The position,
of the wife was considerably improved in the time of the
later Smriti-writers by establishing the rule that no
offence short of adultery was to be considered as a legal
reason for abandoning a wife.1 Even according to the
earlier Smritis the right of divorce is not exclusively
marital by any means.2
Nothing, however, is better capable of illustrating the Proprieta-
comparatively friendly disposition of Indian Customaryry llg11'3.
Law towards the sex than the important proprietary
rights which the Indian Jurists were successively forced
to grant to women. The history of Stridhana and of
women’s right to inherit and to a sh^re on partition
will have to be treated in detail hereafter. Though there *
is no genuine Vedic authority3 for the general exclusion
of women from inheritance, there is every reason to
believe that their right of succession and to a share on
partition has gradually developed from their claim to
maintenance. Now-a-days even the right to be maintained
out of the common estate is the only claim which
the female members of an undivided family under Mitak-
shara Law have on the family property, and the main-
tenance of the females and disqualified males constitutes
one of the main charges on the family estate,
The law regarding the male members of an Indian The Joint
family naturally divides itself ij)to two parts, according familr-
as the father or other common ancestor of its members
is alive or not. In a half-patriarchal state of society,
such as existed in the joint families of ancient India,
the power of the father—head of a family—must naturally
be very great. Accordingly we learn fi»om the Smritis
that a father might castigate, sell, cast off, give away
1 See the. General Note to Jones’s Mann.
2 Vasishtha XVII. 75—80 ; Manu IX. 74—76 ; Narada XII. 96—100.
3 Manu has also been quoted on the authority of Mitraniigra and
Haradatta, as asserting the incapacity of women to inherit. See
Mandlik. 367. But this is due to a false reading of M. IX. 18
(Adayadah or Hyaduyagcha for Amantragcha). The reading of the
textus receptus is supported by the best MSS. and by the Commenta-
ries of Medhatithi, Govindaraja, Narayana, Nandanacharya and Raghava-
nanda.
6
81
while introducing Sati into the Brahmanical system, Lecture
mitigated the harshness of this practice considerably by Iv-
declaring its performance as optional and prohibiting it
altogether in certain cases, such as that of a pregnant
woman or the mother of an infant child. The position,
of the wife was considerably improved in the time of the
later Smriti-writers by establishing the rule that no
offence short of adultery was to be considered as a legal
reason for abandoning a wife.1 Even according to the
earlier Smritis the right of divorce is not exclusively
marital by any means.2
Nothing, however, is better capable of illustrating the Proprieta-
comparatively friendly disposition of Indian Customaryry llg11'3.
Law towards the sex than the important proprietary
rights which the Indian Jurists were successively forced
to grant to women. The history of Stridhana and of
women’s right to inherit and to a sh^re on partition
will have to be treated in detail hereafter. Though there *
is no genuine Vedic authority3 for the general exclusion
of women from inheritance, there is every reason to
believe that their right of succession and to a share on
partition has gradually developed from their claim to
maintenance. Now-a-days even the right to be maintained
out of the common estate is the only claim which
the female members of an undivided family under Mitak-
shara Law have on the family property, and the main-
tenance of the females and disqualified males constitutes
one of the main charges on the family estate,
The law regarding the male members of an Indian The Joint
family naturally divides itself ij)to two parts, according familr-
as the father or other common ancestor of its members
is alive or not. In a half-patriarchal state of society,
such as existed in the joint families of ancient India,
the power of the father—head of a family—must naturally
be very great. Accordingly we learn fi»om the Smritis
that a father might castigate, sell, cast off, give away
1 See the. General Note to Jones’s Mann.
2 Vasishtha XVII. 75—80 ; Manu IX. 74—76 ; Narada XII. 96—100.
3 Manu has also been quoted on the authority of Mitraniigra and
Haradatta, as asserting the incapacity of women to inherit. See
Mandlik. 367. But this is due to a false reading of M. IX. 18
(Adayadah or Hyaduyagcha for Amantragcha). The reading of the
textus receptus is supported by the best MSS. and by the Commenta-
ries of Medhatithi, Govindaraja, Narayana, Nandanacharya and Raghava-
nanda.
6