One main challenge for the British judicial authorities in India was the existing diverse systems of law. Apart from literary traditions of different schools of Muslim and Hindu Law, the situation was further complicated by the practical traditions of Customary Law that applied according to caste, tribe, lineage and family group (Carroll, 1983). The solution of British rulers was to promise that administered personal laws would be those of the respective religious community. For upper caste Hindus, this implied that they could appeal to the British-Indian courts based on textual Hindu Law if the concerned parties were also Hindus. The reluctance in Britain’s legal and religious intervention in India also resulted from the fear that the recurring mutiny, stemming from orthodox Hindu and Muslim reactions, would escalate out of control.
Enacted in this context, the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856 appealed to “true” interpretations of the precepts of the Hindu religion. In the preamble, the Act acknowledged the established custom (that widows could not remarry) but countered it with “a different custom, in accordance with the dictates of their own conscience”. While legalizing the marriage of Hindu widows and ensuring certain rights to property and guardianship of children, the Act cautiously settled itself within the patriarchal framework. Emphasis was put on the ineligibility of childless widows to inheritance. The minor widow, whose marriage had not been consummated, was subject to a list of male relatives (the mother was ranked after the grandfather) regarding her remarriage.
In Sen’s remarriage, one could detect a stronger sanction of customs than that of legal restriction. These aspects of her life, although subjected to the Indian patriarchy, demonstrated a kind of local resistance to the Crown rule.
Sources:
- Carroll, Lucy. “Law, Custom, and Statutory Social Reform: The Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act of 1856.” The Indian Economic & Social History Review, vol. 20, no. 4, Dec. 1983, pp. 363–388, doi:10.1177/001946468302000401.
- “Government of India Act of 1858.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/place/India/Government-of-India-Act-of-1858#ref486261.
- “The Hindu Widow's Re-Marriage Act, 1856.” Laws of Bangladesh, bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/act-9.html.