COURTESY- SANDHYA JAIN PLEASE READ!!! Marriage laws to be made more women-friendly The foundational issue that needs resolving here is the issue of women’s equality. Are female citizens of India equal to males, as envisaged by the Constitution, or are they incurable dependants who can never support themselves and whose upkeep, once transferred from the father/brother on marriage, must never revert to the woman herself or to her natal family. Hence the punitive provisions against (Hindu) husbands, to the extent of bleeding his entire family. Ironically, this move is the exact reverse of the Muslim Women’s (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986 – by a Congress Government – which pushed the responsibility for destitute divorced women back on their natal families, even if they were in no position to assume such a burden, and absolved rich husbands of the duty to pay alimony to their abandoned wives. Several issues are involved here, and deserve careful reasoning, as the measure will most impact middle classes that struggle hard to earn modest affluence, mostly in the form of a dwelling and some savings. First, the Government’s move to make divorce easier by introducing the ground of irretrievable breakdown as a reason to exit a marriage is welcome, but is negated by setting a three year deadline for ending marriages, when six months should be adequate. This offers both parties the opportunity to make a quick break and avoid the bitterness that accumulates through prolonged judicial proceedings. Then, since the Government now believes that marriage is a contract, contract-style rules should be applied to a marriage. Since it will now be only between the two persons, who alone are responsible for its success or failure, third parties cannot be cited as reasons for breakdown of the marriage, and certainly their property/assets cannot be extracted by a departing wife. It bears mentioning that by giving judges the discretion to decide what compensation a divorcing wife is due from the wealth of her in-laws, the Government has opened a door for rampant judicial corruption. This should be closed without further ado. Then, as in the case of contracts, length of tenure should be a deciding factor in settling the issue of compensation, if any. Here, first and foremost, a woman must be fully entitled to get back the shridhan she received at the time of marriage, and there can be no negotiation on this score. Yet here – in a classic instance of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing – the Government and the Judiciary have been stressing upon holding both sides guilty in cases of dowry harassment! This absurd logic has inhibited parents of girls from making a list of gifts given to girls at the time of marriage, with the result that they have no legal recourse when the marriage goes sour and they are thrown out of their matrimonial homes when their parents cannot fulfill unreasonable demands. Clearly, ‘progressive thinking’ works against weak women and empowers the undeserving. To return to the issue of compensation, it must be related to the length of a marriage, which is a standard practice in the West (from where our ‘progressives’ derive their inspiration) where pre-nuptial contracts determine the compensation due to a women according to the length a marriage survives. There is usually nothing for a marriage that does not last five years. Moreover, any sharing of assets must be based on property/wealth earned or created by the couple during the duration of the marriage only, and cannot legitimately extend to cover property/wealth created by either before marriage. If pre-marital assets are to be brought into the division, then this must be gender-neutral and a man married to a richer woman must get equal access to her and her family’s wealth. Then, while the rights of children, if any, are undeniable, there is no case for alimony for working women. The courts are aware that there have been several cases of affluent working women giving up their jobs when the marriage broke down in order to claim robust alimony as the price of consenting to divorce. This trend will be reinforced under the present proposed changes in divorce law, which will encourage women to take punitive action against their in-laws on the slightest pretext. It is noteworthy that the rights of children to inherit ancestral property is sacrosanct in Hindu law; what the new law proposes is the deprive parents of a divorced man while they are still alive. It is pertinent that in many countries, such as Britain, all inherited property is excluded from divorce settlements. Regarding ‘inheritable’ property, it is pertinent that parents may need their assets for the marriage of other children, to support themselves, or pay for costly medical treatment of themselves or some member of the family.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 16:58:38 +0000
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