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From: ravi@crystal.UUCP (C. V. Ravishankar)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.india
Subject: Women's rights, Muslim/Hindu laws
Message-ID: <55@crystal.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Mar-86 18:04:54 EST
Article-I.D.: crystal.55
Posted: Tue Mar 11 18:04:54 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Mar-86 07:37:25 EST
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 30
Keywords: Women's rights, Shariat, Hindu laws

> From ams@philabs.UUCP (Ali Shaik) Mon Mar 10 10:36:07 1986

> So I would like to have more discussion on
> this topic, including info from those knowledgeable about Hindu law.
> Those who followed the stuff about Manu, etc would know all is
> not well there either. Specifically, property rights of Hindu
> women are pretty bad, aren't they: is it true that property
> would go to the eldest son rather than the widow? and that property
> is divided unequally among sons& daughters (sure, this holds
> among Muslims too..). And what correlation does this have with
> the dowry system: do lower property rights lead to lower
> "economic worth" of women?

Not so.  The law governing Hindus in India (based upon the Hindu Succession
Act, 1956) is that when a Hindu male dies without leaving a will, his estate
is divided in EQUAL portions among his surviving "Class 1" heirs.  His 
"Class 1" heirs are:  his wife, his mother, his daughters, and his sons.

Therefore his sons inherit no more of their father's estate than do their
sisters, mother, or grandmother (and so women do not have "lower" property 
rights).

As for the "Laws" of Manu, I am not aware of any time in recorded Indian
history when these were truly the law of the land.  In this sense, the
comparison with the "Shariat" laws is inappropriate.  

The Laws of Manu are little more than an archaic curiosity that bear as 
much relevance to present-day Hindu laws as the "stone-to-death" laws of
the Old Testament bear to the Christian world of today.  Their main
significance is really to social anthropologists.