She Comes to Take Her Rights

Srimati Basu is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Depauw University.

"Basu's research offers a persuasive argument that it is not passivity or ignorance that restricts women's enjoyment of property ownership, but a conscious negotiation of familial relationships and bonds to build social capital and ensure immediate and long–term emotional and material security." — Feminist Collections"Our view of India is filled with images of downtrodden women in various guises: women burned to death over dowry, women immolated on their husbands' funeral pyres, women committing female infanticide, women who are poor, illiterate, exploited. In Western discourse about India, Indian women are constructed as helpless victims and in the process Indian society and culture is constituted as less than modern. We need to understand the lives of Indian women because the repetition of the atrocity stories tell us very little about what is happening, why it is happening, and what is changing or likely to change. Basu's decision to focus on women and property and ask the 'why' question makes this a very important book." — Geraldine Forbes, State University of New York, Oswego

• List of IllustrationsList of TablesAcknowledgments1 Women, Law, and Property in IndiaWomen and PropertyThe Power of Law on Women and in the "New" NationsNominating Agents, Marking ResistanceCamouflaging the Self: Methodological Choices and Other Fieldwork AngstThe Three Delhi NeighborhoodsLooking Ahead2 Women and Property Inheritance:Scant and Slippery FootholdsProperty ValuesThe Significance of Class and ResidenceWomen As Property OwnersProperty Distribution and Marital StatusRelative WealthNon-Hindu Women and PropertyBlocking Women's Inheritance"Hishabey to Ami Pai" ("Well, I Get It According to the Calculations"): Shipra's Family PropertyConclusion: Stable Systems of Disentitlement3 Gifts for Alliance: Marriage and the Flow of GoodsSetting Up Matches: Gifts for "Alliances" OnlyWedding Ceremonies: The Framework for Gifts"Jo dena hota hai" ("What Has to Be Given"): The Nature and Parity of Wedding Gifts"Ladkiwale ko to dena hi parta hai" ("The Woman's Side Does Have to Give Things, of Course"): Issues of Dowry and DemandPaying for WeddingsProtima's Life: The Instability of MarriageConclusion: Marriage and the Transfer of Wealth4 "Wo Ayee Hak Lene" ("There She Comes, to Take Her Rights"): The Dreadful Specter of the Property-Owning WomanMultilayered Attitudes toward Natal Property and Women's PropertyEqual Love: Conceptions of Equitable Distribution"Naihar Tut Hi Jaye" ("The Natal Home Is Broken for Me"): Fears of Natal AbandonmentProperty over Time: Dowry and Long-Term Help in Relation to PropertySurrogate Sons: Brotherless Women Inherit PropertyProperty as Payoff: Eldercare and Other Family ResponsibilitiesMedha's Case: Complex NegotiationsConclusion: Multiple Positions, Optimal Compromises5 Knowing Themselves:Women's Attitudes toward Wealth and Well-BeingReconceptualizing Stridhan (Women's Wealth)Crucial Problems, Imagined SolutionsThe Shadow of the Legal RealmConclusion: The Limits of Critical Analysis6 Protecting Property:Gendered Identity in the Indian Higher CourtsMise-en-scène: The Legislative Construction of Women's Property RightsPatterns of AuthorityDifferent Spaces for Daughters, Sons, and WivesDefining Religion, Faith, and CustomConclusion: "Spoilt Darlings" and "Patient Packhorses"?7 Conclusion: Property and ProprietyAppendix AAppendix BNotesBibliographyIndex