India is a secular country. The term ‘secular’ is interpreted as that there is no religion of the State. It treats all religions equally. The Indian Constitution guarantees that every person has the freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practise, and propagate religion. This leads to the creation of different personal laws with respect to religion. All Muslims are generally governed by Muslim personal law. The Muslim personal law contains different legal provisions regarding marriage, dower, divorce, will, maintenance, etc.
Mahr is a sum of money or other property which the wife is entitled to receive from the husband in consideration of marriage. It is an obligation imposed by law on the husband. Non specification of dower does not render a Muslim marriage void. If it is not fixed court can fix it. Parties to the marriage can fix the mahr by agreement either before, at or after the marriage. It is known as specified dower. If it is fixed by mutual consent after marriage, it is known as Mahr-i-tafweez; and if it is fixed by court it is known as mahr-i-takkim.
Under the Sunni Law, specified dower must not be less than the value of 10 dirhams but there is no upper limit. Dower is never invalid on the ground of its being excessive. They were payable immediately after the marriage is known as prompt dower. And dower become payable either on the dissolution of the marriage or on the happening of a specified event like death of the party is known as deferred dower.
Remission of dower – wife has no power to agree to receive any dower at the time of marriage. She has the power to remit the whole or any part of the dower in favour of her husband or his heirs after the marriage.
Right to retention – Muslim wife have a right to continue the possession of her husband’s property in those cases where her dower has not been paid. This right is only available when the marriage has been dissolved by death or divorce but not during the substance of marriage.
Dower debt – Dower is considered as an unsecured debt which may be recovered by the wife from her husband when alive or against his estate when alive or against his estate went dead but if wife dead before recovery, her hires can recover the same.
In Hakim Masihuddin v Abdul Wahid case, court observed that Mahr or dower is a sum of money which the wife is entitled to receive from the husband in consideration of the marriage. Under Mohammedanlaw, dower is an obligation imposed upon the husband as a mark of respect of his wife. The amount of dower was fixed at in this case is rupees 20,000 at the time of marriage. The dower in question is the prompt dower as it was payable on demand. If the dower has not paid the wife and after her death, her pals can recover the same from the husband.
Aishwarya Says:
I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.
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In the year 2021, we wrote about 1000 Inspirational Women In India, in the year 2022, we would be featuring 5000 Start Up Stories.