RIGHTS OF HINDU WOMEN IN COPARCENARY PROPERTY: LEGAL REFORMS AND CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES

Abstract

The issue of property rights for Hindu women, particularly in the context of coparcenary property, has been one of the most contested and evolving facets of Indian legal and social history. The traditional Hindu joint family system, governed by the Mitakshara and Dayabhaga schools of Hindu law, for centuries relegated women to a subordinate status in matters of inheritance and property ownership. The structure of coparcenary, inherently patriarchal, traditionally excluded women from ownership and management of joint family property. The Hindu Succession Act, 1956, marked a significant legislative intervention aimed at codifying and reforming the law relating to intestate succession among Hindus, but it fell short in granting equal coparcenary rights to women. With legislative and judicial interventions in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, especially the seminal Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, the legal landscape has shifted toward greater gender parity. The landmark amendment of 2005 sought to address this imbalance, declaring daughters as coparceners by birth, and thus entitled to the same rights and liabilities as sons.