The term Stree Dhana stands for the wealth of a woman. Stree Dhana is defined in traditional Indian books of Law as
“What is obtained by a married woman or maiden in the house of her husband or her father, from her brother, husband and parents form her Stree Dhana.”
This wealth included immovable property also and its exclusive ownership.
In the series of many law givers, Vijnaneshwara, who lived in the 11th century CE, wrote his Smriti, the Law Manual called Mitakshara in which he defined Stree Dhana as
“Property obtained by a woman through inheritance, purchase, partition, seizure or finding is her Stree Dhana.”
With this, he brought in every category of wealth under the Stree Dhana and a woman had exclusive rights over it. Stree Dhana was way beyond what we know of as the convoluted Dowry system of today.
The women of India were the primary custodians as well as users of all the forms of wealth that were associated with an Agrarian civilization such as:
- Land
- Water
- Good Seeds
- Cattle for farming.
She was thus a key link in the fertility chain too and an epitome of fertility of both land and mankind
This was the glorious state of affairs in Bharat much prior to the English legal system accepting the principle of giving wealth in the hands of the women in the West. Until even the late 1800s, women in Europe could not claim ownership of property – material as well as intellectual.
Gender and Wealth Balance
The Bharata law had also laid down rules on how the Stree Dhana could be passed from mother to daughter / daughter-in-law to granddaughter and so on. Stree Dhana thus was a matter of Matrilineal inheritance. Thus, there was a provision for accumulation of wealth in the name of Stree Dhana in the female kingdom but the outflow into the male kingdom was restricted by law.
This coupled with their equal access to education and knowledge made Women an economic power house of the civilization. Women thus were literally the Lakshmi of each family and the civilization as a whole.
The Stree Dhanawas carefully designed to stay in the hands of the women of the society, of the civilization, with every lady’s Stree Dhana, serving as the nest egg for each family, due to her innate saving and safeguarding nature.
The ancient law makers of India had thus also ensured that the men would not be able to depend on the women or their inherited wealth and that, the men would have to take to occupations, to create rotatable wealth that would go towards the family’s day to day living as well as towards public administration and maintenance of the society.
This kept the economy and growth of the civilization dynamic and energized, even during times of high prosperity. It prevented the setting in of complacency and laziness which are the causes for downfall and decadence.
It is this practice over generations, which perhaps has made Indians, innately, a saving community rather than a spending community, as compared to other civilizations of the world.
Even today, 37% of India’s wealth, or more than 1/3 of its wealth is in the form of savings.
Established And Sustained Traditions
A woman in Bharat thus, also held family lands but since they were immovable property, when she moved to her husband’s house on marriage, her share of the family lands used to be worked upon by her brothers for her.
Bharat also had well established agricultural laws whereby, out of the produce from a land, 1/3rd went to the owner, 1/3rd went to the tiller and 1/3rd went to the water provider.
The brothers who looked after and worked upon all the family lands, thus owed the sisters, who were owners of their part of the family land, 1/3rd of the produce from that parcel of land.
So, while the sisters visited the brothers during Raksha Bandhan and tied Raksha on their brothers’ wrists to pray for their safety as they went to work on their sisters’ lands too during the monsoon, the brothers visited the sisters after the harvest, during Deepavali season on the 2nd day, the Bhai Dhuj to give her the accounts of produce from their lands and hence their 1/3rd share of the same.
These were the gifts the sister would receive from her brother on the day of Bhai Dhuj.
Such a law, model, practice and tradition spanned across Bharat.
For, we see a similar tradition of sisters visiting the brothers on Kanu and Kanum Pongal after the harvest festival of South India, which is Pongal, Pedda Pandiga. The brothers would feed the sisters and send them back home with their share of the produce from the sisters’ lands.
Thus, the tradition of Raksha Bandhan – Bhai Dhuj are actually a standing celebration of the successful Bharata society model of Wealthy and Empowered Women as well as its sustainable Agrarian model of Wealth Sharing and Management.
It was not Agrarian Economics. For, Bharat has always been a land of abundance and not scarcity. Hence it was not a mindset of economics and socialism but a mindset of creating, owning and sharing prosperity that has always guided this civilization and its psyche.
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