Family law as a means of ensuring gender justice for Indian women.

Abstract

This analysis of the use of family law to ensure gender justice for women in India is based on the assumption that law plays an important role in the struggle for gender justice despite problems in accessibility and focuses on how family law can help end the oppression that the compulsion to marry perpetrates on Indian women. It is argued that the colonial construct of the religious nature of personal laws must give way to development of a Uniform Civil Code for India that will seek gender justice. After an introduction, the article uses Australian family law as a model for suggested reforms in Indian family law. The first main section provides the details of Australian family law. The next section explores the suitability of Australian family law as a model for Indian family law through a consideration of the following: 1) whether Australian family law is a flawed model; 2) the difference between Indian society and industrialized societies; 3) economic independence and family law; 4) whether it is possible for family law to reconceptualize marriage as a partnership and whether this concept is desirable for Indian women; 5) whether progressive laws create a disadvantage for most women; 6) whether secular law embodying individualism is suitable for community-oriented Indian society; and 7) whether Indian society should become individualistic. The third section of the article considers the developments in feminist legal theory that raise doubts about the worthiness of legal reform as a feminist strategy and concludes that legal reform is a necessary part of a larger strategy.