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| Sunday, 29 June 2003 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Women's inheritance rights and Akurubbi by Padma Edirisinghe "All of you take the small pox that I have except my niece Akurubbi and all of you will be cursed except her " - (Land deed made in the year 1693 by Appu of Danture Medapalatha).
Maybe my father felt that he had spent enough on my education that I was gifted only with a little stretch of fields that I have never cared to even visit. The Dee Eli Oya springing from a mountain range in the Thun or Hatara Korale cuts through it at a level far below the field that no water ever enters the field and so it remains there just uncultivated and neglected. My husband went to the Great Beyond before he mustered enough courage to ask for his own due. So now my whole income consists of my pension and the earnings from my perpetual scribblings. Whenever panic sets in as to my future in the context of the zooming COL I console myself "Only a few more years.....". But recently somebody had a look at my palm and predicted that I would (Touch wood) go on to live the full Biblical span of life. Instead of being overjoyed I was panic - stricken, viewing the future scenario completely from the economic perspective. How could I go on catching up with the cost of living galloping at a higher speed than governor Anderson's coffin?. Amenities How could I enjoy all the amenities that I presently enjoy? Would I have to give up my principle of trying to fend for myself through my own efforts without taking the begging bowl to my own children and siblings and the world Bank? The picture appeared even more dismal when in keeping with my mood very pessimistically, I envisioned the cessation of my incidental source of supplementary income. It would not be very long before I go out of circulation in the writing field. When one begins to entertain morbid thoughts there is simply no end to the gushing spring nor its rapid dynamic flow. Maybe very soon mental and physical atrophy would set in making me incapable of my eternal gadding about and putting into a coherent form my experiences and thoughts. Maybe my fingers would soon lose their nimble nature to operate the computer and that would be the end of my writing career as my handwriting is often labelled as Egyptian hieroglyphics as it is so illegible. I plummeted into the lowest doldrums of mental comfort but as usual the panacea for the depressed mood began working. It was only recently that I had reviewed Kapila Vimaladharma's book, "Women in the Kandyan kingdom". Here I remembered that in the melange of many significant facts presented was the section on the inheritance laws of women in the Kandyan kingdom which dishes out the fact that in this domain reputed for overlooking human rights as understood in the present context that daughters were given by fathers substantial amounts of property to maintain themselves. I hunted for the book and turned the pages of this section and came upon a whole gamut of such instances between the years 1600 -1750 AD under the title "Land transfer deeds to women or by women". Now to pay a bouquet to the habit of reading my mental depression soon began to thaw. Instead of being sorry for myself and developing ill-feelings to my family members especially to my dear departed father I began to think of those women who lived some 400 to 500 years ago who had been treated more justly than me. Forgetting the immediate inheritance issue I began to get interested in them from the humanitarian point of view. Their very names beguiled me, Kanduruhamy, Kapuruhamy, Kalu Etana, Bilinjiji, Samuddara, Kavani Hamy, Kalu Hamy, Dothu Hamy, Nachchire, Tikiri Etana, Nil Ekee (the blue one or the dark one)...... Some were daughters, some grand - daughters, some were adopted daughters who looked after the father or mother in his or her old age. Eternal Now they began to pass before me in an eternal procession garbed in their indigenous dresses, some topless, some covering their breasts, living their ordained lives amidst the majestic mountains of our beloved highlands. And then they all pass away into the Great Beyond never to be heard or seen again. Such is the lot of all of us, men or women. But this is not a piece on the transient nature of life, the cardinal teaching of the Blessed One. But to be fair by the reader before I quit this section let me quote a certain instance. Little pieces of interesting information that precipitated some last wills have been given here and there but none excels this account about Akurubbi given in Vimaladharma's valuable book. Akurubbi is or was the niece of Appu. She looks after him when he is attacked with small pox and in return "inherits the field of five 'pelas' at Ayagama, Kandupalatha. One Abhuva (perhaps a son or a near relative) asks "How, what for me?" And this is what Appu (a good Buddhist invariably who forgets all about his merciful religion in his final hours) says on his death bed. "All of you take the small pox that I have and all of you will be cursed except my niece Akurubbi...After Akurubbi has possessed until her death she may give the land to Ranmunugoda Achari Naide with her daughter". This is the land deed made in 1693 AD in the days of our ancestral kings in Danture, Medapalatha. Incidentally Danture is the famous venue where king Vimaladharma fought his war to retrieve Dona Catherina alias Kusumasana Devi from the Ferenghis in order to consolidate this position as the monarch of Kande Uda Pas Rata. On his death though she sat on the throne for a few months king Senarath again managed to exploit her female gender by marrying her and becoming king himself despite that the fact that she was the rightful heir to the throne of Mahanuwara. Anyway all these are incidental messages written in my scribes's wanderland. Main message of this passage is that Women's organizations should activate themselves that inheritance law of our land should be so adjusted as in India so that women get equal and just treatment. Human avarice and cruelty continue to escalate despite all religious teachings and finally only the long hand of Law seems to remain the only factor to stabilise conditions. Of course it is a sad fact to acknowledge as sad as the picture of that long line of Kandyan women, the Kalu Ethanas, the Tikiri Hamys, the Komby Hamys, the Nil Menikes in their Kandyan apparel parading to their final resting place, however happy at the thought that their gender never precluded them from living comfortably till their final exit. Of course their wants then were simple and few. But still in the modern social context of Sri Lanka there are many women who don't seem to do so. The male grabber is so strong. |
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While in India I learnt from the English newspapers there that the
state legislature has passed a law ensuring equal distribution of parents'
lands to the offsprings irrespective of the gender. Whether it is the
particular state legislature that I was then denizened, ie. Rajasthan or
the overall central legislature that had passed this very benevolent
decree has skipped my memory. But the news intrigued me for I happen to be
a victim of the absence of such non-sex discriminatory legislation here.
