She Comes to Take Her Rights: Indian Women, Property, and Propriety

Examines the contemporary workings of property law in India through the lives and thoughts of middle-class and poor women.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations List of Tables Acknowledgments 1 Women, Law, and Property in India Women and Property The Power of Law on Women and in the "New" Nations Nominating Agents, Marking Resistance Camouflaging the Self: Methodological Choices and Other Fieldwork Angst The Three Delhi Neighborhoods Looking Ahead 2 Women and Property Inheritance: Scant and Slippery Footholds Property Values The Significance of Class and Residence Women As Property Owners Property Distribution and Marital Status Relative Wealth Non-Hindu Women and Property Blocking Women's Inheritance "Hishabey to Ami Pai" ("Well, I Get It According to the Calculations"): Shipra's Family Property Conclusion: Stable Systems of Disentitlement 3 Gifts for Alliance: Marriage and the Flow of Goods Setting Up Matches: Gifts for "Alliances" Only Wedding 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 Demand Paying for Weddings Protima's Life: The Instability of Marriage Conclusion: Marriage and the Transfer of Wealth 4 "Wo Ayee Hak Lene" ("There She Comes, to Take Her Rights"): The Dreadful Specter of the Property-Owning Woman Multilayered Attitudes toward Natal Property and Women's Property Equal Love: Conceptions of Equitable Distribution "Naihar Tut Hi Jaye" ("The Natal Home Is Broken for Me"): Fears of Natal Abandonment Property over Time: Dowry and Long-Term Help in Relation to Property Surrogate Sons: Brotherless Women Inherit Property Property as Payoff: Eldercare and Other Family Responsibilities Medha's Case: Complex Negotiations Conclusion: Multiple Positions, Optimal Compromises 5 Knowing Themselves: Women's Attitudes toward Wealth and Well-Being Reconceptualizing Stridhan (Women's Wealth) Crucial Problems, Imagined Solutions The Shadow of the Legal Realm Conclusion: The Limits of Critical Analysis 6 Protecting Property: Gendered Identity in the Indian Higher Courts Mise-en-scene: The Legislative Construction of Women's Property Rights Patterns of Authority Different Spaces for Daughters, Sons, and Wives Defining Religion, Faith, and Custom Conclusion: "Spoilt Darlings" and "Patient Packhorses"? 7 Conclusion: Property and Propriety Appendix A Appendix B Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Srimati Basu is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Depauw University.

Review :
"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