Marriage laws : There are eight legally recognisable types of marriage. The bride is given the maximum property inheritance rights when the parents select the groom & the girl consents to the selection (Brahma marriage), & minimal if bride & groom marry secretly as lovers (Gāndharva marriage) without the approval of her father & her mother. However, in cases of Gāndharva marriage, she is given more rights than she has in Brahma marriage, e.g. if the husband uses the property she owns or has created with husband, he is required to repay her with interest when she demands it. A girl may marry any man she wishes three years after her first menstruation, provided she does not take her parent’s property or ornaments received by her before the marriage. However, if she marries a man her father arranges or approves of, she has the right to take the ornaments with her. A woman has the right to marry anyone she wants to: if she has been abandoned by the man she was betrothed to, if she does not hear back from him for three menstrual periods, or does hear back but waited for seven menses.
... either a mediocrity or a monstrosity instead of a light to the whole world. Let us, however, hasten to declare that by Hinduism we do not mean the present form of the caste system or the old marriage laws or any specific orthodox convention. The giving of central place to cow-preservation as if the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Gita boiled down to abstention from cow-slaughter is also far from our ...
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