Towards Uniformity of Rights

The chapter locates the PWDVA in the context of India’s multiple, religion-specific personal laws. It underlies three factors that allow PWDVA to establish common standards governing family life, despite un-common or separate family laws. First, the religion-neutral framing of the PWDVA and the judges’ understanding of domestic violence as a universal phenomenon cutting across religion. Second, though the DV Act concerns violence, it is designed essentially to protect the economic interests of women, which enables the Act to enter the domain of family law. And third, judges’ understanding that women face the same economic difficulties when their marriages break down, irrespective of religion. Focusing on the issue of maintenance, the chapter demonstrates, that the PWDVA because of the above three factors, allows judges to focus on their sameness rather than difference, and create common standards on maintenance irrespective of religion of the parties.

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