The rights of daughters in Indian households are seldom clear. Marrying them off seems to be the primary duty of parents; unmarried adult daughters are not always welcome in the household. The Allahabad High Court has ruled, though, that daughters of any age or religion have a right to maintenance from their parents. The right to maintenance can be derived from a number of laws, but the shortest route to maintenance for an ‘aggrieved’ daughter would be the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. Three women had complained about the ill-treatment they received from their father and stepmother, and a lower court had granted them interim maintenance. The Allahabad High Court was sitting on the appeal made by the father and another person against this order, based on the claim that the daughters were adults and financially independent. The high court upheld the lower court’s decision. This is a memorable judgment, especially since the Kerala High Court, while ruling on a father’s petition challenging an adult daughter’s claim to maintenance last year, had decided that a daughter who is a major cannot claim maintenance just because she cannot find means of sustenance, and that, too, without proving any physical or mental injury.

The two high court rulings indicate that the application of law is not mechanical; each case is distinct. The DV Act was formulated to ensure that women were sheltered in the true sense in their homes; no female relative could be hurt or turned out. In a society where violence against women takes multiple forms, from actual beatings to verbal and behavioural cruelty, this law is enormously important. To be effective, it must be realistic; hence, it assumes the patriarchal structure of society. This always leaves scope for any law to become paternalistic, or over-protective of women. Although the equality of genders has remained an ideal envisaged in the Constitution, and is not present in everyday life where violence against women is routine, laws need to seek the balance between justice towards women and over-protection. The rights of women should not be compromised any more than that of men. But because of the inequality built into women’s situation in India, the courts must take extra care to address each of their cases on their individual merit.