Introduction
The importance of laws governing inheritance is of considerable interest not only to the public, but also the economists and policymakers. It has been proven by studies both empirical and theoretical that transfer of physical capital from parents to children is a crucial determinant of households’ wealth and earning ability. Studies have also proven that when distribution of inherited wealth is highly unequal, its due impact on general economic inequality in the society is significant.
However despite the aforementioned setback caused due to inequality in inheritance, women’s ability to inherit property is restricted by law in many jurisdictions and India is one such jurisdiction. Law relating to succession can be broadly divided into two, non-testamentary or intestate succession law and testamentary succession law. The testamentary succession in India is governed through a unified legislation namely Indian Succession Act, 1925. The non-testamentary succession however is governed by separate personal laws. The non-testamentary succession legislation which applies to the Hindus is Hindu Succession Act, 1956. This act was hailed for its consolidation of Hindu laws on succession into one legislation and in many ways it was itself revolutionary in empowering women and eliminating disparity in the Hindu law of succession in India. For example the act abolished the Hindu woman's limited estate. Furthermore this act gave a Hindu female full power to deal with her property, to use it or to dispose it as she likes. Yet there were provisions which thwarted gender equality and gender justice. Attempts at invoking fundamental rights (Article 19, 15 and 21) only created confusion. Where on certain occasions the judiciary held ...
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...on gave all daughters, married and unmarried, the same rights as sons to reside in or seek partition of the family dwelling house. The deleted Section 23 did not allow married daughters unless they were separated, deserted or widowed residence rights in the parental home.
Deletion of Section 24
The amendment deleted Section 24 of the principal act. Section 24 of the principal act barred certain widows, such as those of predeceased sons, from inheriting the deceased's property if they had remarried.
Conclusion
Although the Amendment has been received positively and was rather ambitious, and was touted for being revolutionary in bringing down gender inequalities in the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, yet the truth is that it has not removed all the gender inequalities in the legislation. Furthermore there are certain anomalies in the Act also which needs to be resolved.
On September 12, 2014, Denise Rockett filed a complaint against Eugene Nigro, Esq. Nigro was reportedly negligent when handling legal matters in her late husband’s estate. Specifically, the complainant alleges that Denise, as Executrix of her late husband’s estate, was intentionally excluded from major decisions, not properly compensated, and deprived of control over their properties. Nigro allegedly breached his fiduciary obligation and violated Mass.R.Prof.C. 1.4(b), 1.7(b), and 8.4(c).
A unanimous Supreme Court decision overturned the Lovings convictions on June 12, 1967. The Supreme Court ruled that Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute violated the Fourteenth Amendment, specifically the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause. Chief Justice Warren’s opinion stated that the Constitution provide citizens “the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”
In Ex parte Threet, 160 Ham. 482, 333 H.2d 361, 364 (1960) the court held that there can be no secret common law marriage. They also stated that secrecy is inconsistent with the requirement of holding out the marriage publicly. Id. However, a distinction was made by In the Matter of Estate of Giessel, 734 H.2d. 27 (Ct. App. 1987). The court said that a marriage that was kept secret from relatives is acceptable if they relatives did not live within the same community as the couple. This was the distinction between In Ex parte Threet, 333 H.2d at 361 and In the Matter of Estate of Giessel, 734 H.2d. at 27, the couple from the first case lived in the same community as their relatives and kept their marriage a secret from mostly everyone. In the Matter of Estate of Giessel, 734 H.2d. at 27, their community knew them as a married couple and their relationship was not kept a secret. Windsor and Jackson’s neighbors and close friends within their neighborhood knew that they were married. While attending a parent teacher conference together, Jackson signed them in as Windsor and Jackson
In Nehru’s India, women were victims of a “passive revolution” that subtly advanced bourgeoisie men of higher castes under a guise of parliamentary democracy. Though women have presided over the Indian National Congress, served as a prime minister, and represent a large part of India’s la...
Income inequality not only harms us fiscally, but also affects our mental and physical wellbeing; therefore, it is important to identify the right ways to control wealth distribution among people.
While hard to believe, education and inheritance may play a role in the increasing wealth gap in the U.S.; along with the government’s flounder...
In the common law, all women’s property except land and improvements went to her husband and it became under his control. “She” pretty much had no say in what happened to any of her things. Women were slowly losing all of their rights. If the husband wrote in his will that everything was his and none of it would be given to his wife, then the wife pretty much had no property if the husband died before her. If they had a kid when they were married and he died it would be under his will what happened to the child. The wife had no say in what guardians could be put down for the child. So if the husband did not want to put her in his will then when he died she would no longer have guardianship of her children.
Mr. and Mrs. Loving were residents of the small town of Central point, Virginia. They were family friends who had dated each other since he was seventeen and she a teenager. When they learned that marriage was illegal for them in Virginia, they simply drove over the Washington, D.C. for the ceremony. They returned to Virginia and were arrested the following month for violating the anti-miscegenation statute, which was declared in the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. Commonwealth’s Attorney Bernard Mahon obtained the warrant for Richard Loving and “Mildred Jeter”. Mildred’s maiden name was on the warrant because in Virginia a marriage between a white and black was considered void. In October 1958, the indictments of Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter were bought before the court and on January 6, 1959, Richard and Mildred pled not guilty to the charges. Changing their pleas to guilty and waiving their right to a jury trial due to fear and optimism for a favorable punishment, the Lovings took the plea bargain. The Circuit Court judge that was presiding over the case, Judge Leon M. Bazile, did not see favor on them and sentenced them to one year in jail. Yet, at the same time in agreement with the plea bargain, Judge Bazile suspended the sentence for 25 years provided that the Lovings would leave the state of Virginia immediately and not return together for the whole period. There was a catch, for when the 25 year period ends they would still face the prosecution of the court if they ever returned. He concluded his decision with this quote:
Blaise M. Sonnier, J.D., DBA. (2012). Circular 230: Its Day-to-Day Impact on Tax Practices. Retrieved October 12, 2016, from http://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/2012/feb/tpr-feb12.html
There are many instances of gender inequality in the dominant religion of Hinduism (Srivastava, 2008). Husbands treat their wives like property, and that is pretty much the root of the issue. A major factor of this subject is the concept of dowry. This concept should be well known before the issue is further dissected. Dowry is an ancient tradition where the husband gains the riches of the wife immediately after they are married (Bedi, 2012). What tends to happen is that the woman’s dowry does not usually satisfy the man, and this leads to devastating violence. Women are then killed in various torturous ways, such as live burning. This also leads to another major element of the problem: female infanticide. This is the unlawful killing of baby girls (BBC, 2014). Women do not want to disappoint their husbands by having a daughter, so they get rid of their unborn or newborn babies. Also, daughters cause a financial burden to the family, so families would want to dispose of them (BBC, 2014). Also, men are far more educated than women in India, and that leads to more problems. Yes, awfully tragic, bu...
Indian gender roles were well defined, and men’s and women’s responsibilities were equally crucial to
The ideology of gender equality is present in Hinduism, but is not followed within the religious community or in the Indian society. Despite the single chromosome difference between genders, this biological variation has multifaceted religious, social, and economic implications. The question remains how religions such as Hinduism or Christianity can emphasize spiritual equality, yet condone, perpetuate, and justify the practice of gender inequality especially in the work force. This issue of patriarchy affects woman not only in India, but also throughout the world including the United States. In order to evoke a change within society, it is important to understand the mechanisms and justifications for spiritual equality without societal equality and how Hinduism might be able to bring India closer social equality.
There is a collective existence of different forms legal systems, because of the country’s diversity in culture, language and religion. This diversity is able to flourish in India only because of representation of different communities. Diversity and pluralism are acknowledged in India which safeguards the interests of different social groups and communities. This led to law being seen as necessarily pluralistic. However, after colonisation there was an effort made by the British to make law uniform, an essential condition in what was seen as ‘modern law’. Nonetheless, after independence an effort was made to have a pluralistic legal system as this would lead to better representation of different communities. This is how the Panchayati Raj system, a form of local self-government came about. Panchayats were reintroduced in 1992 after the British rule, and there a panchayat in every town of village. The people of the village elect the members of the ‘panch’, whose responsibility is the local administration of the village. In many places, gram panchayats are also known as gram sabhas. In this manner, different forms of legal pluralism shape everyday ordering and disputing in rural and urban India. They relate to formal law as well as customary legal orders equally. The two governance systems interact, which can be termed as formal law and traditional law. Customary law is also termed as unnamed law as it does not refer to a specific basis of
... for Hindus until the British stepped in and compelled the Hindus to behave immorally by allowing their widows to remain alive.”(97.)
The current manifestations of the caste system are now far more generalized across the Indian subcontinent than was the case in former times. Caste as we now recognize has been endangered, shaped and perpetuated by comparatively recent political and social developments. This is evident even i...