Overview

Separated and Divorced Women in India examines the economic rights and entitlements of separated/deserted women in law and practice in India, and explores all the laws and policies relating to financial support for a wife or child that come into play once a separation or divorce has taken place. Based on a survey of more than 400 women in four different regions across the country, this seminal work lays bare the miserable financial conditions of separated/deserted women and the lengthy procedural obstacles that these women have to contend with to get any justice. It interrogates the absence of any laws that would give Indian women ownership rights in the property and assets that they have helped to acquire through financial or non-financial contributions in the marital home, and suggests that Community of Property should be made a part of law for all Indian women. This work further challenges the conventional understanding of productive work and advocates recognition of the productive nature of women′s household work. Another aspect discussed pertains to the pervasive scourge of dowry and how seldom women recover their dowry and stridhan through the law.

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9788132109525

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This important study takes up an issue that has been neglected for far too long in Indian social science research as well as activism: the extremely dire conditions faced by separated and divorced women in India, and the abysmally inadequate legal entitlements generally obtained by them... The study makes clear recommendations for laws that conclusively establish women's right to... at least half share of the assets of the couple during the period of living together... This study is a critical intervention in an important area that deserves to be widely read and acted upon with urgency. -- Jayati Ghosh In a studied manner, the author has covered every legal aspect that relates to maintenance to be provided to women of di-erent religions in India. The study consciously looks ahead of the previous body of work available on this subject. In doing so, the study [does] not... [merely] limit itself to pointing out the various lacunae existing in the present legal framework, but also o-ers viable and e-ective solutions to mitigate this evil by -lling the vacuum existing in this area. -- Justice (Retd) Ajit Prakash Shah The present study on the economic rights of divorced and separated women in India shall prove to be a landmark study... As a socially perceived, recognized and justiciable category, divorced and separated women in India occupy a grey zone... The study rightly refrains from both valorizing the institution of marriage and from taking the shape of being an ode to victimhood. It explores the possibilities that open up in the new life that a divorced and separated woman seeks to construct, the everyday negotiation of daily challenges, as well as her encounter with the deep-seated structural prejudices which restrain her from availing of legal options in pursuit of her aspirations... The sense of disquiet this study leaves you with is to be welcomed if a beginning is to be made in the search for answers. -- Indu Agnihotri [The book] delves into the issue as to how women in India lose out completely if the marriage does not work out. The author, here, is more of a researcher, for she has interviewed women across Indian states to find out how women take all the ill-treatment...her conclusions are based on the qualitative as well the considerable number of her sample... a valuable piece of research that needs to be deliberated upon to improve the condition of Women who are divorced. The clear message of this book is to move from rhetoric to action. -- The Sunday Guardian 20131117 The book aims to meticulously document the experiences of women who are separated or were deserted and look at the manner in which they live with their children and at their rights and entitlements in marital homes. -- Frontline 20130906

This important study takes up an issue that has been neglected for far too long in Indian social science research as well as activism: the extremely dire conditions faced by separated and divorced women in India, and the abysmally inadequate legal entitlements generally obtained by them... The study makes clear recommendations for laws that conclusively establish women's right to... at least half share of the assets of the couple during the period of living together... This study is a critical intervention in an important area that deserves to be widely read and acted upon with urgency. -- Jayati Ghosh In a studied manner, the author has covered every legal aspect that relates to maintenance to be provided to women of di-erent religions in India. The study consciously looks ahead of the previous body of work available on this subject. In doing so, the study [does] not... [merely] limit itself to pointing out the various lacunae existing in the present legal framework, but also o-ers viable and e-ective solutions to mitigate this evil by -lling the vacuum existing in this area. -- Justice (Retd) Ajit Prakash Shah The present study on the economic rights of divorced and separated women in India shall prove to be a landmark study... As a socially perceived, recognized and justiciable category, divorced and separated women in India occupy a grey zone... The study rightly refrains from both valorizing the institution of marriage and from taking the shape of being an ode to victimhood. It explores the possibilities that open up in the new life that a divorced and separated woman seeks to construct, the everyday negotiation of daily challenges, as well as her encounter with the deep-seated structural prejudices which restrain her from availing of legal options in pursuit of her aspirations... The sense of disquiet this study leaves you with is to be welcomed if a beginning is to be made in the search for answers. -- Indu Agnihotri

Author Information

Kirti Singh is a noted lawyer working and practising on women’s issues in Delhi. As a part-time member of the 18th Law Commission of India, she worked on the reports on laws related to child marriage and acid attacks. She has recently drafted a bill on crimes and killings in the name of ‘honour’ on behalf of All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), of which she is the legal convenor. This draft law has been adopted with some changes by the National Commission for Women (NCW). She is also working on other issues with NCW and is on their expert committee on laws. In the past she has worked on amendments to laws relating to sexual assault and sexual harassment in the Indian Penal Code, 1860 for AIDWA and NCW. She has also worked for reform in the laws related to ‘maintenance’ under Section 125, Code of Criminal Procedure. During the early 1980s, she was involved in suggesting reforms to laws related to dowry and rape. Currently she is working on an extensive study of laws which promote son preference and discrimination against the daughter for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

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