ESPRIT DES LOIS

Even in a joint family an unmarried daughter is not unprovided for the author of Mitakshara gives her due share.18 The verse is so interpreted as to make the daughter get to the extent of one-fourth share of what she would have had, had she been a son. The author emphatically declares that this is not a provision for marriage but a right to share in the heritage. In the Law of inheritance, a daughter occupies a very high place in the order of succession, coming immediately after a son and a grandson. 

The sense of justice shown by the Hindu law-givers by allotting such a high place to a wife and daughter in order of succession, when perhaps, in every other legal system of the time, women were totally excluded, is praiseworthy.

Divorce is allowed on easy terms under certain circumstances. Kautilya and Parasara mention these. A woman is allowed to re-marry in case of five calamities. In a joint Hindu family a widow-when her husband is separate-can always adopt without the authority of her husband and without the consent of the Sapindas of the family unless she has been expressly prohibited by her husband from doing so.

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