Women's Property Rights

India is largely a patriarchal society and hence, most of its personal laws do not do justice to the interests of women. While lofty words are spoken about a woman’s unsurpassable contribution as a mother through her labour and love, her contributions need to be acknowledged fully, in comparable economic terms. A woman who chooses not to or cannot have children, too continues to add value to her matrimonial and natal households with her lifetime contributions, which also needs to be recognised on an equal pedestal. 

Project Sri Janani is an attempt to ensure that women’s value is suitably acknowledged and compensated, commensurate with their contribution, so they stand not only as their husband’s equal, but also to ensure that women may live their lives in safety in a home they can call “theirs”.

Typically, a woman’s workload increases considerably after her marriage. For all the myriad responsibilities she takes on and performs in her matrimonial household, she receives nothing, but basic material sustenance in return from her husband. While taking care of the house and the people residing there, might appear to be trivial tasks, attending to her children, her husband and his relatives occupies her entire day and over a span of time, her entire life. 

In addition to taking care of her matrimonial home, and often despite the restrictions, a woman takes care of her natal home and her abilities are stretched to the hilt. The life of an unmarried woman is no bed of roses either – she takes care of her natal home throughout her life. 

Having expended her capacity this way, a woman’s scope to pursue her own career or to become financially independent is drastically limited. Equally important is that such obligations stifle a woman’s opportunity to self-actualise and achieve her true potential.

The concept of Stridhan/dowry was an effort to provide a financial cushion to a woman. Stridhan is the wealth (gifts) given to a bride, by her natal family, generally during her wedding or later too. This transfer of wealth depletes the natal family financially to that extent. Unfortunately, this wealth does not remain hers exclusively and her matrimonial family might deny her the proper access to such wealth. While the law recognizes this problem and protects a woman’s right to her Stridhan, it is ineffective.

Despite benefitting from her labour and her Stridhan, a woman is denied economic (including property) rights in her matrimonial house. Perchance, she acquires a house from her matrimonial family, it is probably only in her old age. So, whose house is a married woman helping to make and look after anyway? Does she remain a habitual contributor to her matrimonial house, without any proper recognition?  

Moreover, she is forced to give up her relationship with her natal house. A male belongs to but one family, throughout his life, whether married or not. An unmarried female also belongs to but one family, her natal family. But societal perception is that a female who once belonged to her natal family, suddenly upon marriage, belongs to her marital family. This, perhaps, is her greatest loss. 

Without proper entitlements, women are not only deprived financially but are also plunged into precarious existence. The insecurity due to lack of property rights of women are further heightened when women are the victims of domestic violence at the hands of her husband, his relatives, and in deplorable situations, even at the hands of her own relatives. This vulnerability only increases as a woman ages. Stuck in such a flux, a woman is unable to find any refuge either at her natal or her matrimonial house. To remedy this, there is an urgent need to understand property rights in the context of inheritance for women, and rights like maintenance, residence in shared households, and protection from abuse. 

It is regrettable that a person who lays the foundation for that household along with her husband and contributes immensely towards the welfare of the matrimonial family and thereby to the society is forced to live in this state. Despite all her contributions, women are relegated to a subordinate status in the house and society, bereft of the respect they deserve and the security they require. The immediate need is to recognize her contributions and entitle her to the fruits of her labour. Also, the wrongful notion that married women have no rights or entitlements in their natal house and are consequently and unfairly deprived of their ancestral property rights needs to be clarified outright. 

Despite progressive laws passed by the legislature and interpreted by the judiciary for inheriting and enjoying the right to property, women, the beneficiaries of such changes, themselves feel alienated from such laws and continue to sacrifice their rights in favour of other members of their family, out of fear or obligation. For instance, some states have passed laws that encourage joint ownership of properties by spouses, which permit married women to get property well before their old age, but the desired positive impact of these legislations is yet to be seen. 

There is an urgent need to rectify this situation and ensure that women, irrespective of their differences on religion, race, caste, disability, ability to procreate, marital status or age and combined in such intersections can understand their entitlements under Indian law to effectively enjoy their right to acquire, hold, manage and dispose of property and are empowered to take recourse to legal methods to claim such rights from their family members. 

The urgency is to educate women about their rights to inherit property from their matrimonial house and natal house, in specific roles as daughters, widows, mothers, sisters, grandmothers, distant heirs and so on. The fundamental aim is to also educate women about their rights based on their unique conditions which would vary across religions, castes and discriminatory events and to inform them of a course of action to best secure their rights in the current legal scenario. As such, the hope is that women, empowered with knowledge of their rights can demand the same from their families, in order to secure their present and future. 

Women also need to be made aware that inheritance laws have given legal sanction to certain deep patriarchal and stereotypical cultural practices which have placed women at an inferior position compared to men on accessing, administering, enjoying, and disposing property. Most personal laws have used gendered aspects such as the sex of a woman or her marital status or exploited the financial vulnerability of mothers as valid reasons to prohibit equal enjoyment of and the right to property at par with men. Realizing the discriminatory treatment meted out to women on such grounds and challenging such practices on the societal and legal front would be crucial to the progressive realization of gender justice on the anvils of the Constitution and International Conventions like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, 1979.  

In an honest effort to sensitise and address these issues, we at Project Sri Janani, endeavour to achieve the goals set out in Part 2 below.