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12. I have already shown that, under the Muhammadan law, the right of cohabitation comes into existence at the same time and by reason of the same incident of law as the right of dower. That the latter right may modify and affect the former cannot be doubted: how it affects and modifies it is the main subject of this reference. Dower, under the Muhammadan law, is a sum of money or other property promised by the husband to be paid or delivered to the wife in consideration of the marriage, and even where no dower is expressly fixed or mentioned at the marriage ceremony, the law confers the right of dower upon the wife as a necessary effect of marriage. To use the language of the Hedaya, "the payment of dower is enjoined by the law merely as a token of respect for its object (the woman), wherefore the mention of it is not absolutely essential to the validity of a marriage; and, for the same reason, a marriage is also valid, although the man were to engage in the contract on the special condition that there should be no dower."--(Hamilton's Hedaya by Grady, p. 44). Even after the marriage the amount of dower may be increased by the husband during coverture (Baillie's Digest, p. 111); and indeed in this, as in some other respects, the dower of the Muhammadan law bears a strong resemblance to the donatio propter nuptias of the Bomans which has subsisted in the English law under the name of marriage settlement. In this sense and in no other can dower under the Muhammadan law be regarded as the consideration for the connubial intercourse, and if the authors of the Arabic text-books of Muhammadan law have compared it to price in the contract of sale, it is simply because marriage is a civil contract under that law, and sale is the typical contract which Muhammadan jurists are accustomed to refer to in illustrating the incidents of other contracts by analogy. Such being the nature of the dower, the rules which regulate its payment are necessarily affected by the position of a married woman under the Muhammadan law. Under that law marriage does not make her property the property of the husband, nor does coverture impose any disability upon her as to freedom of contract. The marriage contract is easily dissoluble, and the freedom of divorce and the rule of polygamy place a power in the hands of the husband which the Law-giver intended to restrain by rendering the rules as to payments of dower stringent upon the husband. No limit as to the amount of dower has been imposed, and it may either be prompt, that is immediately payable upon demand, or deferred, that is payable upon the dissolution of marriage, whether by death or divorce. The dower may also be partly prompt and partly deferred; but when at the time of the marriage ceremony no specification in this respect is made, the whole dower is presumed to be prompt and due on demand Mirza Bedar Bukkt Mahomed Ali Bahadoor v. Mirza Khurrum Bukht Yahya Ali Khan bahadoor 2 Suth. P.C.J. 823. The question when such dower becomes payable was discussed by the Lords of the Privy Council in Mulleeka v. Jumeela L.R. Sup. Vol. Ind. Ap. 135 : 11 B.L.R. 375 and in Ranee Khajooroonissa v. Ranee Ryeesoonissa L.R. 2 Ind. Ap. 235 : 5 B.L.R. 84 and in the former of these cases their Lordships approved the rule laid down by the Sadr Diwani Adalat of these provinces in Nawab Buhadoor Jung Khan v. Uzeez Begum N.W.P. S.D.A. Rep. 1843-46 p. 180 wherein the Court considered "the nature of the exigible dower to be that of a debt payable generally on demand after the date of the contract, which forms the basis of the obligations, and payable at any period during the life of the husband, on which that demand shall be actually made, and therefore until the demand be actually made and refused, the ground of an action at law cannot properly be said to have arisen." These rulings leave no doubt that although prompt dower may be demanded at any time after the marriage, the wife is under no obligation to make such demand at any specified time during coverture, and that it is only upon making such demand that it becomes payable in the sense of performance being rendered in fulfilment of an obligation.

26. In the case in which Their Lordships made these various observations the question of non-payment of dower as a defence to the action did not arise, nor do the facts of the case as found in the report show whether the dower was prompt or deferred, whether it bad been demanded or not before institution of the suit, and of course there was nothing in the way of deposit by the husband of the amount of dower during the course of the trial in the Court of First Instance. These are the distinguishing features of this case; and if the distinction has any tendency to alter the principle, such tendency is entirely in favour of the plaintiff-appellant's case.