Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/279

 Whenever occasion arose, he enlarged the sphere of woman's authority under ancient Law, whether the question was in regard to her capacity to hold property, in regard to the interpretation of the term Sridhanam, in regard to her right to treat what became vested in her—as her "own property, not limited, but absolute, exclusive and separate in every sense and devolving as such or in regard to her rights of adoption." In all these issues Sir Subramanya Iyer's decision weighed in favour of the rights of woman in accordance with equity and justice and was calculated to raise her status from the footing of a dependant to a footing of equality, as far as the circumstances of the case would permit. He did not depart from the spirit of the Hindu Law so as to destroy the identity of the structure of Hindu Society in any of these decisions, but when the question arose whether a woman's right was to be extended from a certain point to its logical sequence, he did not hesitate for a moment from the admission that ancient Law in spirit was not against such extension.