She Comes to Take Her Rights : Indian Women, Property, and Propriety

Using the contemporary workings of property law in India through the lives and thoughts of middle-class and poor women, this is a study of the ways in which cultural practices, and particularly notions of gender ideology guide the workings of law. It urges a close reading of decisions by women that appear to be contrary to material interests and that reinforce patriarchal ideologies. The Hindu succession act was passed in India in 1956 theoretically giving Indian women the right to equal inheritance of their parents’ self-acquired property, but in the years since, its provisions have scarcely been utilised. Using interview data drawn from middle-class and poor neighbourhoods in Delhi, this book explores the complexity of women’s decisions with regard to family property in this context. This book shows that it is not ignorance of the law, naivet? about wealth or unthinking adherence to gender prescriptions that guides women’s decisions, but rather an intricate negotiation of kinship and an optimization of socioeconomic and emotional needs.