428 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Babu Ramnarayan Singh : By no means.
Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : There is not going to be that sweet relationship between brothers and sisters and sisters’ husbands that now exists, because after a girl is married, she will have her husband or her son or somebody else in her father-in-law’s house to control the property of her father’s family and there is bound to be bitterness, bad blood and jealously litigation and all the rest of it. Ultimately the family will break up. Are we going to enact a Code which will facilitate the breaking up of our households ? Will the summum bonum of Social life be reached when every single family is broken up and domestic peace driven away ? It is for you to consider whether this should be done. I feel that these things are bound to happen.
Sir, a girl may be educated. But after her marriage when she goes to her father-in-law’s house, she is being guided and dictated in all matters either by her husband or by some relation of his and it will not be in her interest to endow her with a share in her father’s property by legislation here. You will say you will pass another legislation to prevent her from being dictated in respect of the property she has got from her father. If you are going to endlessly legislate in that way, in order that you may have the intellectual satisfaction of having a Hindu Code, I would leave you alone. I therefore, think that this is a revolutionary change and this should not be introduced. This does not mean that I am against making provision for girls. By all means make provision for them. Make any provision for unmarried girls. Make her marriage and her education the first charge on her father’s properly. Make it absolute charge on that property so that on her marriage when she will be absorbed in the family of her husband, she will be divested of her interest in her father’s property. But that is not what you are doing. You talk of equality of sex, justice and fairness but are allowing the girl the right to inherit not only her father’s property equally with the son, but also to share her husband’s property or father-in-law’s properly. This is equality with a vengeance. The girl should not get property from both sides. This will also lead to further fragmentation of property.
Shrimati G. Durgabai: The boy will get a share of his mother’s property ?
Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : A daughter whether married, unmarried or widowed will get her mother’s property. Let my