DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 949
of the rights of women to property. We know of the lives that many women had to lead. Will Shri Syamanandan Sahaya or those who are of his opinion deny the fact that many a chaste and respectable women belonging to wealthy families had to lose their prestige and status on account of having been left without property ? As far as I am concerned, I have, therefore, no difference of opinion about women’s right of succession to property. The question is whether they should obtain share in the father’s property or in the father-in-law’s.
Giani G. S. Musafir (Punjab) : There is no objection to father-inlaw’s.
Seth Govind Das : So this is a big question. Today our system of marriage is such that the woman goes to her husband’s place. There was also a time when there existed no system of marriage in the society. The story of Uddalak and Shwetketu in the Mahabharata clearly shows that there was a time when no marriage were held. Then came a period of matriarchy, where the husband used to go to the wife’s place and the female child among their children inherited the property. That system still prevails in some places, in Malabar for example. Then the period of patriarchy came. Most of our social structure today comprises of patriarchy, not matriarchy, and how far would it be proper to make a woman inheritor of father’s ‘property in such society is a controversial matter. I would like to impress that so far as the women’s right of succession to property is concerned that must be there, but that should exist in such a manner that an unmarried woman should be entitled to it at her father’s place and a married one at her husband’s.
There are also some other clauses of this Bill about which there may be a difference of opinion. So far as this Bill is concerned. It incorporates two things. First, various existing laws have been emalgamated. Secondly, some clauses for the purpose of social reform have been added. As I had just said, it would have been in the fitness of things had this Bill not come up. When our President Dr. Rajendra Prasad was the President of the Congress, he had pleaded for not presenting such a Bill and so according to him it had better not come up. But now it has been carried so far that if it is withdrawn at this juncture, various interpretations shall be forthcoming for that. The next election is before the people. I do not give very much importance to the elections and believe that the Congress is not so ineffectual that if the present Bill is passed and people are told that the Congress has done it, the Congress Party would be defeated. But if the Congress