A brave new course
The Cabinet proposal to amend marriage legislation to give women the right to inherited or inheritable marital property is a forward-thinking measure of far-reaching implications for women. The will to carry out the intention behind such a sweeping reform would, however, have to lie with the courts, which would still have to decide on the quantum of compensation while also tackling the obvious difficulties of valuing property and then enforcing such just settlements.
Once the new law takes effect, divorcees and women living separately from their husbands can look forward to a fair settlement rather than just subsist on the miserly alimony that courts tend to fix. While single women are inevitably tied up for long periods in litigation over divorce and settlement, it is suspected that the current lopsided laws and their interpretation favouring men means countless women suffer their marriages in silence because their circumstances allow no liveable alternative.
Whereas the upwardly mobile urban wife with a career in hand can take an independent view of marriage incompatibility, the lot of our rural women is still inextricably tied to that of their husbands. Economic emancipation is a long way away and true gender equality is still a pipe dream in a country that gave the world one of its first powerful women Prime Ministers. Even so, to move forward with legislation that corrects historical faults in the marriage laws is the right course and the GoM under
Mr A.K. Antony has suggested a brave new course of action.
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