By Lakshmi Laasya
Hindu personal laws govern marriage, adoption, guardianship, and maintenance — all deeply personal aspects of a person’s life. These laws, though codified and reformed, continue to carry the rot of gendered bias. Women, even in a supposedly progressive post-colonial India, are still burdened with unequal rights in matters most personal to them. Ironically, laws that should have empowered Indian women to make family decisions reinforce the very structures that silence them.
The inequality is not hidden between the lines — it is knit right into the law.
Take adoption, for instance. A married Hindu man can adopt a child with the consent of his wife (Section 7 Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956). A married Hindu woman, however, cannot do so unless widowed, divorced, or if the husband is legally incapable(Section 8, HAMA, 1956). This isn’t about procedural formality — it is a direct legal statement: a woman’s agency in family building is subordinate to her husband’s. The discrimination is legal, systemic, and chilling.
Then comes guardianship. Under the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, the father is the natural guardian; the mother comes “after”( Section 6, Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956). The Supreme Court had to intervene in Githa Hariharan & Anr. v. Reserve Bank of India & Anr., (1999) 2 SCC 228 to say that “after” doesn’t mean “only after his death” but also when he is absent or unwilling. Yet, decades later, the text of the law remains unchanged. The idea that the mother — often the primary caregiver — must wait for the father to be absent to gain legal recognition as a guardian is not just unfair. It is unacceptable.
Maintenance is no better. The Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act allows a wife to claim maintenance from her husband, but makes no provision for mutual support, even in today’s world where many women are breadwinners (Section 18, HAMA, 1956). The law expects women to be dependent and men to provide. Even when well-intentioned, this model of protection is outdated. Women don’t need “support” from a place of weakness. They need recognition as equal legal beings.
The Hindu Marriage Act appears more balanced on paper. It allows both men and women to seek divorce on similar grounds. But a closer reading reveals bias. Section 13(2) lists “special” grounds for women to seek divorce — such as the husband committing rape, sodomy, or having another wife ( Section-13(2), Hindu Marriage Act, 1955). What’s disturbing is that these acts are treated as unique burdens only when faced by a wife, a woman. As if men don’t experience cruelty or betrayal. The law casts women only as victims, rarely as equal partners with equal hurt and equal decision-making capacity.
Even worse, Section 9’s provision for restitution of conjugal rights allows a spouse — often the husband — to drag the other to court to resume cohabitation ( Section 9, HMA, 1955). In T. Sareetha v. T. Venkata Subbaiah, AIR 1983 A.P. 356, the Andhra Pradesh High Court found this provision violative of a woman’s right to bodily autonomy.8 Yet the provision remains, waiting to be misused — because reform has become reluctant, and rights are treated as optional.
It is even more ironic that these laws continue to ignore LGBTQ+ persons completely, forever the middle child. Hindu personal laws, while codified in the 1950s, remain stuck in that time. The very idea of same-sex marriage, same-sex adoption, or transgender parental rights is legally invisible. A Hindu lesbian woman, even if married under the Special Marriage Act or recognized as a partner, has no right to adopt with her spouse. The laws see her not as a person, but as an omission.
This exclusion is not just a gap. It is violence by erasure.
The Constitution of India promises equality(Article 14, Constitution of India), protection against sex-based discrimination(Article 15, Constitution of India, and the right to life and personal liberty (Article 21, Constitution of India). Yet, Hindu personal laws — which govern millions — mock these values. The law continues to view men as heads, women as dependents, and marriage as a hierarchy, not a partnership.
And here lies the core problem: reforming personal laws is not just about legal clean-up. It is about constitutional commitment.
When Parliament amended the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 In 2005 to grant equal coparcenary rights to daughters, it was hailed as historic. Yet, that same legislative will has been absent in adoption, guardianship, maintenance, and marriage. The judiciary has done its part from Vineetha Sharma to Githa Hariharan. But the legislature still looks away.
It is time to ask — how long will we allow outdated norms to govern our most intimate rights? Why must women wait for the judiciary to give them what the Constitution already guarantees?
The failure to reform these laws is not technical. It is Political, Social, and ideological. It signals discomfort in accepting women, and queer persons — as autonomous individuals with equal legal voice.
Just like the continued existence of the Marital Rape Exception,( Section- 375(2) Indian Penal Code, 1860 ) these biases are not “bugs” in the law. They are features of a system that wants to look modern but act medieval.
No woman should ever be told that she cannot adopt because she is married. No mother should have to prove her husband’s incompetence to gain full guardianship. No spouse should be forced to “return” to a marriage through a court order. No law should rest on the presumption that men lead and women follow.
The path forward must be clear:
*Amend Section 6 of the Guardianship Act to give both parents equal status.
*Rewrite Sections 7 & 8 of the Adoptions and Maintenance Act to let women adopt equally.
*Reform Section 18 of HAMA to reflect mutual spousal obligations.
*Most importantly, ensure these laws include all genders, all orientations, and all people.
Because a democracy that discriminates in the family will always discriminate in society.
The burden of injustice cannot continue to be justified by “tradition.” A Tradition that degrades, excludes, or controls has no place in the present, let alone the future. If Hindu personal law is to remain “personal,” it must first become Just.
