Abstract

In the context of the Indian legal system's continued ambivalence towards recognising women as citizens, this paper addresses questions of women's autonomy in India, and analyses its location within the legal discourse. The women's movement has primarily tried to analyse questions of women's autonomy through exploring women's position in law. Among other indicators women's position in society is often analysed through marriage, divorce and property acts. This paper analyses the evolution of these acts and critiques whether they have led to women's autonomy or whether they have merely subsumed questions of autonomy resulting in the further marginalisation of women in the polity. The paper begins with the assumption that locations matter and that laws affect different women differently, particularly in the context of India where civil law is constantly pitted against personal and customary law. Therefore, to comprehend the situation of women in India an understanding of the evolution of these laws is deemed necessary, because laws are considered as primary markers of autonomy.