DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 603
educated women of the country. We have also accepted that equality in our Constitution. So, superficially looked at, it strikes one as to why there should be any difference between a son and a daughter in the matter of inheritance. But the question is not such a simple one. A father’s desire for the wellbeing of a son or daughter cannot be different. Naturally his love and affection is bound to be equal. No sensible man can think that the son should get everything and the daughter nothing. In fact that has not happened. Reference was made that even in the middle-class families,—leave aside the rich, they are very few in number—the father spends much more on the marriage of the daughter than what his son could ever hope of getting, in many cases even at the cost of the education of his sons. I say ‘in many cases’. That is my reading of the matter. Why then is there opposition in regard to inheritance ? Even the Sanatanist loves his daughter as much as his son. We cannot say that Sanatanists make a difference in this respect. The opposition is due to an important factor for considering which we must look to the whole structure of our Hindu society.
A reference was made by my hon. friend Pandit Mukut Bihari Lal Bhargava in this respect. I would like to elaborate that point a little
in as short a time as I can. The whole structure of our Hindu society is evolved through centuries and centuries of time. In the structure of our
society the basic unit is the family. And on the continuity of that family as a unit rested naturally the stability of our society. It is not based on
an individual as unit, but more or less the basis of the whole structure is the family as a unit. And the continuity of the family was naturally the
main object with which all our laws and customs have been evolved from time to time. The pivot therefore was the continuity of the family which was the unit of the structure. Daughters naturally by marriage pass into a different family while the sons remain in the family to continue it. To foster the continuity and to prevent its being broken up, the joint family system was evolved. Why was the joint family system a peculiar feature of Hindu society ? Because Hindu society is based on the continuity of the family. That is why the joint family system is a peculiar institution of Hindu Law not known to other systems of law which are more or less based on individuals. Till only a generation or two back the joint family system worked well. It has maintained the continuity and stability of our social structure for centuries past. That is why there is objection to the