The Hindu Law of Marriage and Stridhana

As its tell-tale title indicates, this volume is a unique contribution to the literature on law for it deals most exhaustively with Hindu Laws of Marriage and Stridhana. What are the sources of that law and who are governed by it? A brilliant legal luminary and an outstanding authority on the subject of his times, Sir Goodroodas Banaerjee has posed these questions and given most cogent and convincing answers. According to Manu, the Hindu regards his laws as commands not of any political sovereign, but of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe –commands which every political sovereign is not imperatively enjoined to obey. As the obedience to the law implied only obedience to the divine will, it never wounded the pride of the most absolute despot; and the thought never entered the mind of a Hindu that he could, if he chose, alter or abrogate any of the existing laws. The highest possible ambition of every Hindu ruler was to govern according to primeval law; and the most profound administrative ability ever conceived by the imagination of the Hindu poet, was the power to lead the subjects, without the least deviation, in the beaten track marked out by Manu and other ancient law givers. After devoting several chapters to the law dealing with rights and status of the Hindu female, the author poses the question: What constitutes Stridhana? What are the rights of a women over Stridhana and what is the order of succession to Stridhana? Manu says: “What was given before the bridal procession (addhyavahanika), what was given in token of love and what was received from a brother, a mother or a father are considered as the sixfold separate property of married women”. Sage Narada supplements it by adding: “Property given to her by her husband, through pure affection, she may enjoy at her pleasure after his death, or may give it away except land or houses”. Today when a more modern and liberal Hindu marriage law has been enacted by the Indian Parliament after the advent of independence, the present volume is sure to prove a veritable ocean of legal knowledge.