Page:The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy Vol 2.djvu/248

236 the family.” (Ch. II. Sec. 23). That is, the father is likewise master of the ancestral estate, though not of the whole of it, implies that a father may freely dispose of a part of his ancestral estate, even without committing a moral offence. This passage of Yagnuvulkyu, cited by the opposite party, who deny to the father the power of free disposal of ancestral estates, runs, in a great measure, against them, since it disapproves a sale or gift by a father only of the whole of his ancestral landed property, while his sons are living, withholding their consent.

24. To justify the disposal by a father, under particular circumstances, even of the whole ancestral estate, without incurring a moral offence, the author adds, (Ch. II. Sec. 26.) “But if the family cannot be supported without selling the whole immoveable and other property, even the whole may be sold or otherwise disposed of, as appears from the obvious sense of the passage, and because it is directed, that ‘a man should by all means preserve himself;’” and because a sacred writer positively enjoins the maintenance of one’s family by all means possible, and prefers it to every other duty. “His aged mother and father, dutiful wife, and son under age, should be maintained even by committing a hundered unworthy acts. Thus directed Munoo.” Vide Mitakshura, Ch. II. Munoo positively says: “A mother, a father, a wife, and a son, shall not be forsaken; he, who forsakes either of them, unless guilty of a deadly sin, shall pay six hundred panas as a fine to the King.” (Ch. VIII. v. 389).