Note 179 — LAW AND JUDICATURE.

Manu, ch. 9, sl. 104. Whenever the father wishes, is one of the ordained periods for partition; the second is, when the father has renounced worldly enjoyment and the mother is past child-bearing; and this partition may be enforced (according to Nárada) at the son's desire, though the father object. Partition should also be made, the son desiring it, if the father lead a vicious life, or be suffering under incurable disease; even though the mother's menstruation have not ceased. The third period for partition is, the father's decease. (M.) Manu divides,—to the eldest two aliquot parts, to the second son one and a half, and to each succeeding son a single part. The Commentator asks, why that division was not adhered to; and he solves his own question by the remark, that it was disliked by the people, and therefore rightly abandoned. This position he supports by several quotations, and by allusion to the abolition or non-observance of other ancient ordinances, e.g. the raising up of male heirs by the brother of the husband or others.

It is an obvious reflection, that the altered law of distribution is one of the few instances in the Hindu economy where an innate feeling of natural equality has overcome or superseded arbitrary rule—and further, that the change has been brought about by the pressure of the old law upon the privileged casts, who, in common with others, were affected by it.