Stridhan: Women’s Property Rights and Judicial Protection in India

The doctrine of stridhan—the property a woman receives and keeps in her own right—remains one of the more resilient protections for women’s economic autonomy under Hindu law. Once rooted in classical texts and marriage rites, the concept now operates within a modern legal architecture shaped by the Hindu Succession Act, criminal provisions addressing misappropriation, and decades of judicial interpretation. This article traces the movement of stridhan from ritual category to enforceable legal right, examines how courts have negotiated ownership claims in the messy reality of marital breakdown, and evaluates why legal recognition often fails to produce effective restitution. Focusing on key Supreme Court rulings, most notably Pratibha Rani v. Suraj Kumar and Maya Gopinathan v. Anoop S.B., the analysis shows that Indian jurisprudence consistently affirms a woman’s exclusive title to stridhan while simultaneously exposing gaps in proof, procedure, and enforcement that disadvantage vulnerable claimants. The paper argues that doctrinal certainty alone is insufficient: to secure substantive equality, law and policy must close evidentiary gaps, streamline remedies, and adapt to contemporary asset forms. Concrete reforms—improved documentation practices at marriage, faster civil remedies for recovery, clearer prosecutorial guidelines where criminal misappropriation is alleged, and judicial training on gendered evidence—would make the promise of stridhan meaningful for more women.