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Primacy of Property as Devolution of Rights: Case of Women in India through the Lens of Inheritance Laws

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2025

Aashita Dawer Open the ORCID record for Aashita Dawer [Opens in a new window]
Aashita Dawer*
Affiliation:
Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India
*
Email: adawer@jgu.edu.in
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Abstract

Women and Property inheritance is a complex issue in India. The Hindu Succession Laws give women inheritance rights on ancestral, acquired, and agricultural land. This has led to an increase in their bargaining power and a consequential increase in transaction costs, which ideally should challenge the ex-ante and ex-post HSAA 2005, Coasean cooperative equilibriums. While the normative Coasean theorem propounds the dismantling of cooperation with the rise in bargaining, the Hobbesian framework believes that cooperation can exist through coercion. This process, in which women have bargaining rights yet cooperate, happens through “covert coercion.” Despite increased bargaining powers, women are conflicted between inheritance and maintaining familial ties, where covert coercion forces them to let go of inheritance. The article investigates this conflict women face through the lens of Law, normative Coasean and Hobbesian frameworks, psychological costs, and their Lived Reality. Further, this article investigates various efficiency criteria.

Keywords

Hindu Succession ActpropertywomenIndiacovert coercionefficiencywelfarelived reality

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , First View , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Asian Journal of Law and Society

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