The Indian Express reports a Bombay High Court judgment with a slightly misleading heading: Every father has to get his daughter married: HC.
Before I read the story, I wondered about the strong tone of a moral injunction, previously found mostly in the texts of Dharmashastra.
While the judgment seems to have included the sentiments that the headline conveys, the premise of the case appears to be different. Kusum Rewatkar (58) of Wardha district had filed a case asking that her husband, from whom she had been separated for over 25 years, to compensate her for the wedding expenses. Basing his ruling on Hindu law, (under which a daughter is entitled to be maintained out of the estate of the father) Justice C L Pangarkar ruled that “(t)he obligation to maintain the daughter and get her married arises from the very existence of the relationship”.
Does this entail a general proposition that the headline (quoted above) or the first paragraph of the IE report suggested!: “The Bombay High Court has held that every father is under obligation to maintain his daughter and get her married.”
What if the daughter doesn’t want to get married?
More broadly though, what are the obligations of a father?
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