Werner Menski - Modern Indian Family Law

MODERN INDIAN FAMILY LAW

Werner F. Menski

First Published in 2001

by Curzon Press

Published 2013 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2001 Werner F. Menski

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

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ISBN 13: 978-0-700-71316-5 (hbk)

In memory of

Shri M. C. Mathew

Founder-Editor of the Kerala Law Times

(4th June 192010th February 1988)

Contents

[1983 Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 6972]

[1985 Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 110]

[No. 89 [JulyAugust 1995] Manushi, pp. 1516]

[1988(1) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 4547]

[1988(2) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 34]

[1989(1) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 2330]

[1989(1) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 4758]

[1990(2) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 5069]

[1990(2) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 1418]

[1991(2) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 2024]

[1994(1) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 4552]

[1986 Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 1720]

[1986 Kerala Law Times, Journal section, p. 33]

[1986 Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 6365]

[1993(1) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 4548]

[1993(2) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 4548]

[1993(2) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 5056]

[1988(2) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 1417]

[Vol. 7, No. 11 [June 1988] Journal of Law and Society (Peshawar), pp. 1126]

[1990(2) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 310]

[Vol. 53, No. 3 [1990] BSOAS., pp. 543546]

[1992(1) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, p. 6]

[1993(2) Kerala Law Times, Journal section, pp. 1922]

The present volume, built around a framework of essays published earlier, mainly in the Kerala Law Times and a number of other South Asian law journals, could not have been produced so speedily without the ready agreement of all copyright holders to have the previously published material reprinted in its present form. I am most grateful to everyone concerned in this regard, especially Advocates Siby Mathew and M. Mathew at the Kerala Law Times.

A whole generation of students, sitting through those long Tuesday afternoons of seminars on Law and Society in South Asia, have played much more of a role in preparing this volume than they realise. Contrary to popular assumptions, teachers may learn much from their students, and working with so many bright, occasionally immensely well-informed students from all over the world, and especially from South Asian jurisdictions, has been a privilege and a huge bonus. Without critical inquiry from fresh minds, year after year, the analysis and understanding of South Asian legal developments would have been so much less fun, and probably much less rigid. While I take this occasion to thank all my students in that course over the years, Michael Anderson and Martin Lau, who both became valued colleagues, deserve special mention, as well as Dr. Sangeeta Ahuja, whose recent pioneering work on public interest litigation (Ahuja 1997) relieved me of the pressing task of writing a book on the subject.

In the preparatory work for this volume I was diligently assisted by a number of people. I would like to thank especially Rajesh Bhavsar and Hans Menski for their input at various stages in the preparation of the book. Clare Fazal went through the entire manuscript and made many valuable suggestions.

Martin Daly at SOAS established the initial contact with the publishers and has been a great source of support over many years. I wish him well in his retirement. Jonathan Price, Chief Editor of Curzon Press, provided much encouragement and support.

Finally, it is a pleasant duty to acknowledge the financial support of the British Academy for the preparation of some of the articles reprinted in this book, as well as the generous assistance of the Nuffield Foundation in London through a Social Science Research Fellowship, which helped to free some time for research on this book.

The law of India is stated as at 1st January 1999. Any mistakes are of course mine, and I would be grateful for corrections and reference to omissions.