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2. The findings of fact were that the dower fixed was Rs. 10,000 and that there was no divorce in 1935. These findings are not disputed in appeal. It was, on the other hand, admitted by the plaintiff that she had made no claim during the proceedings following on her husband's application under the Encumbered Estates Act. The learned Judge of the lower Court dismissed the suit on the ground that the liability to pay dower was discharged under the provisions of Section 13 of that Act. The plaintiff claimed that the sum of Rs. 10,000 was payable on demand, that is to say, she alleged that the whole amount was prompt dower. The defendant did not plead on this part of the allegation. He merely alleged that the amount of dower was Rs. 32-8-0 and it is obvious on the allegation that there had been a divorce in 1935, that it was a question of no importance whether the dower was prompt or deferred. The learned Judge has found as a fact that the dower was prompt and that the suit was within limitation because the first' demand for payment was made in the year 1938. No evidence has been put before us to suggest that these findings of fact are wrong and therefore I would accept them. It has not been argued that any demand was made before the year 1938.

12. To my mind, it is obvious that only such debts can be discharged under Section 13, Encumbered Estates Act, which can be proved under that Act i.e., all debts or pecuniary liabilities that have been incurred before the application under Section 4 whether the date of payment had or had not expired before the date of the said application. Having come to this conclusion, I have now to find out what is the nature of a dower debt under the Anglo-Muslim law. The application of modern conceptions to an old system of law, when the ideas and the legal principles in the minds of those who laid down the law were entirely different, is apt to lead to confusion and difficulties. Dower may loosely be said to be a debt, but, to my mind, it would lead to unhappy and inconsistent results if we were to consider dower to be exactly synonymous to our idea of a commercial debt. There can be no doubt that dower is not a sum of money which the husband has borrowed from the wife. It is not a gift, as even under the Mahomedan law transfer of possession is necessary in a gift. It will be absurd to apply to it the analogy of sale price. Mahmood J. in Abdul Kadir v. Salima ('86) 8 All. 149 (F.B.) has fully dealt with the nature of a dower debt and has explained that, though, loosely speaking, it may be called sale price, but that is a misleading analogy and that conception came into existence merely because Mahomedan lawyers were more familiar with the contract of sale and purchase. Liability to pay a dower debt is, to my mind, a liability which is peculiar and cannot be brought into our modern conceptions of jurisprudence. It is a promise to be redeemed in future under certain contingencies. I may mention here that, according to our modern conception, any contract to be binding between the parties has to be for consideration. A study of the nature of a dower debt would show that dower may be fixed after the marriage: see Kamarunnissa Bibi v. Husaaini Bibi ('81) 3 All. 266. Again the amount of dower may be increased after the marriage. The question of the rights of the wife to remain in possession of her husband's property in lieu of her dower has arisen in several cases before the Privy Council, and their Lordships in Mt. Maina Bibi v. Vakil Ahmad ('25) 12 A.I.R. 1925 P.C. 63 pointed out that it does not strictly come within the principles of lien, nor under the law of contract, but yet the wife is entitled to remain in possession.,If the dower debt is to be considered synonymous with an ordinary commercial debt, then, in accordance with the principles laid down by me in the first portion of my judgment, not only prompt dower but also deferred dower must be claimed in proceedings under the Encumbered Estates Act, the claim being extinguished if it is not made, and it would then lead to this further absurdity that deferred dower which is not payable till divorce or death of the husband would have to be paid by the Collector long before it is really payable under the personal law of the landlord applicant.

14. To my mind, the word "dower" can only be loosely called "a debt" within the meaning of that term under the Encumbered Estates Act. A dower debt is a liability of a special kind which, though it does not crystallize before demand, is transferable and may crystallize and become a "debt" on the happening of certain contingencies as provided for under the Mahomedan Law or it may become a debt at the option of the wife or of the husband. It is not a commercial debt till either party recognizes it as such. Many wives, as I have already said, never do in fact make a claim and the large percentage even give it up. Several cases have been cited before us to show that their Lordships have used the word "debt" for the word' "dower." But, as has been said so often, a ruling is only an authority for the proposition that it lays down for the particular facts of the case. The point has never arisen with reference to the Encumbered Estates Act and we have to consider the nature of a dower debt with reference to this Act. It has been held by their Lordships of the Privy Council, and has been pointed out by my brother Allsop, that the liability for the payment of a prompt dower comes into existence when the wife demands her dower and if no demand is made, then there is no cause of action for the same. It may be that if a case arose where a suit had been filed without a demand, the Courts may consider that the demand and the filing of the suit were both simultaneous and the suit was maintainable, but it is not open to this Court, after their Lordships' decision, to hold that a cause of action for a dower debt arises before a demand is made. If no demand is made, then prompt and deferred dowers are both payable on dissolution of the marriage by divorce or death. Now divorce is a contingency which may never arise. Death is more certain, but it is indefinite in date. All the cases, so far as I have been able to consider them and which lay down that dower is a debt, deal with the position when, either by reason of a demand or divorce or death, the claim has crystallized into a claim which is due and payable, and at that juncture undoubtedly dower is a debt. Having carefully considered the matter with reference to the question that has arisen before us I am of the opinion that we must hold that a dower is merely an inchoate liability and not a pecuniary liability so long as it is not payable by reason of demand or divorce or death. The plaintiff was, therefore, not bound to claim her prompt dower in the proceedings under the Encumbered Estates Act. It could not, therefore, be said that, by reason of a failure to claim the same, her right to the prompt dower was extinguished.