Married togetherness

Sometimes significant social trends, that the whole country can benefit from, emerge unexpectedly from some corner of the country or other. ...

Sometimes significant social trends, that the whole country can benefit from, emerge unexpectedly from some corner of the country or other. The Karnataka government8217;s decision to issue joint title deeds for sites and homes distributed under its various housing programmes, is one such development and must be welcomed.

As a result of this important and long overdue step, for which the State Land Revenue Act is to be amended, every site and house donated to the poorest of Karnataka8217;s poor, will now be registered under the names of both the husband and the wife, making women more secure in the process. The move is meant to check the tendency of some men to first acquire such holdings and then either forcibly throw their wives out of the house or sell the property and pocket all the money.

The fact is that innumerable Indian women are in an extremely vulnerable position within their matrimonial homes. A visit to the various family courts in the towns and cities of the country would reveal how long anddesperately many of them have been forced to fight in order to lay their hands on even the miserable monthly payment of Rs 500 that the civil laws in this country award them by way of maintenance. What was the Shah Bano case, shorn of the communal colour it unfortunately came to acquire, all about? It was the story of an old woman from Indore who found herself without a paisa to her name, after her husband decided to abandon her and marry someone else. For long years she went from court to court, seeking justice. Today, there are numerous Shah Banos, not just among Muslims but in every religious community in India, desperately seeking justice from tardy courts and overworked judges.

The problem is that while the Indian legal regime recognises the concept of 8220;maintenance8221; after a marriage breaks down, it lacks a matrimonial property law. In contrast, many western countries, perhaps because of their high rates of divorce, have been forced to evolve legislation to cope with the social fallout of marriagesbreaking down. According to such legislation, while the wealth that each partner inherited or acquired before the marriage remains their individual assets, all property that accrued to the couple during the years that they were married to each other, is recognised as belonging to both parties. The fact that a husband may have been the formal breadwinner of the home is immaterial, since the wife8217;s role in keeping the household running is given equal worth in the eyes of the law. Therefore, if such a marriage were to breakdown at some point, the matrimonial property of the couple is then equally divided between both partners. It is time that this country seriously consider evolving such legislation. The fact that this is largely unchartered terrain 8212; no civil or personal law in this country addresses the question of matrimonial property rights 8212; should make the task of evolving a national consensus on it that much easier.