From courtroom justice to doorstep justice

A bride leaves her parents’ home carrying recollections, confidence, courage, dreams and often the only financial security she may ever own: her jewellery and wedding gifts. Yet when marriages become abusive, break down or end in divorce or khula, those very gifts often become the subject of cruelty and control.

Countless women are bullied, threatened or simply expected to return not only their bari but every gift they received at the time of marriage, as though the relationship itself were nothing more than a transaction.

I remember many such women, including myself. The message was painfully familiar: return everything. No one asked what she had invested in the marriage. No one counted the years she devoted to her family, the emotional labour she carried, the children she nurtured or the business opportunities she sacrificed. No one was concerned about her financial well-being after separation. Instead, she was expected to leave with little more than stigma while fighting to reclaim property that was legally hers all along.

Against this backdrop, the Supreme Court’s recent judgment declaring that jewellery gifted exclusively to a bride belongs solely to her is a momentous pronouncement on women’s property rights. By recognising bridal jewellery as a woman’s financial security, rather than mere ceremonial adornment, the court has armour-plated a principle that merits widespread appreciation.

Yet the judgment also raises an uncomfortable question: if the law is already clear, why must a woman begin in the Family Court, proceed to the High Court and ultimately reach the Supreme Court simply to recover what has belonged to her since the very first day of her marriage?

The momentous judgment

In a judgment authored by Justice Shakeel Ahmad and announced on June 30, 2026, a three-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and comprising Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan and Justice Shakeel Ahmad, upheld the Lahore High Court’s decision in a dispute between Ghulam Habib and his wife, Shazia, over the recovery of bridal property. Notably, the bench, like most benches deciding cases involving women’s property rights in Pakistan, was composed entirely of men.

The court held that jewellery and gifts presented exclusively to a bride at the time of marriage are her absolute property. Neither the husband nor his family acquires any legal ownership over these assets and any unauthorised retention of them amounts to an unlawful deprivation of the wife’s proprietary rights.

The Court further affirmed that Family Courts have exclusive jurisdiction to adjudicate claims relating to a wife’s personal property, including jewellery, bridal gifts and dowry articles. The judgment grounded this reasoning in the constitutional principles of dignity, equality and the protection of property.

This legal recognition is only one part of justice. A woman seeking to recover her property may spend years navigating the judicial system. Although actual legal expenses vary, litigation extending from the Family Court to the High Court and, in exceptional cases, to the Supreme Court can cost an estimated PKR 900,000 to PKR 2.5 million or more. This estimate excludes the emotional burden of repeated hearings, travel, loss of income, intimidation and the ever-present social pressure of ‘Log kya kahenge?’ For many Pakistani women, justice becomes financially and emotionally unaffordable.

What the experts say

Dr Sharmila Faruqui, a politician and MNA, shares her views while welcoming the Supreme Court’s judgment. “It reinforces a fundamental principle: a woman’s ownership of her property must be respected and protected. What belongs to a woman belongs to her and neither marriage nor family can take that right away. For many women, jewellery is much more than an ornament. It is often their only financial security, their only independent asset and sometimes their only source of support when a marriage breaks down. When a woman is deprived of what is rightfully hers, it is not merely a property dispute; it affects her dignity, her security and her ability to rebuild her life.

“This judgment sends a powerful message that women’s economic rights are not negotiable. My only hope is that it is implemented in its true letter and spirit. Pakistan has never lacked progressive laws or landmark judgments. Too often, however, women spend years fighting for rights that have already been recognised by law. The real measure of justice is not when a judgment is delivered, but when every woman, regardless of her background, can actually benefit from it,” she adds.

Dr Nadia Tahir, a renowned economist, views this judgment as a potential source of security and capital for women. “It is said that poverty has a woman’s face. The Supreme Court of Pakistan’s ruling that bridal gold is the wife’s absolute property can help change this reality. These gifts are not merely a tradition but also a form of potential security and capital for women. To make this a reality, the government must ensure documentation at the time of nikah through photographs and digital records, link declared jewellery to banking incentives and tax returns and introduce insurance and running finance facilities. Combined with fast-track courts, legal aid, penalties for non-compliance and gender-sensitisation training for police and judges, this judgment can transform bridal gold into a genuine source of economic autonomy for women.”

Prof Dr Muhammad Ayub Mehar, another known economist, highlights three significant points of this judgment. “No doubt, the Supreme Court’s decision is appreciable. There are three important aspects to consider. First, the decision protects assets transferred in the form of dowry, inheritance or gifts. Many marriages are driven by greed to acquire and use a woman’s assets for the benefit of in-laws. Second, where jewellery is sold with a promise of replacement at a later date, compensation should be based on either the current market value or the acquisition value, whichever is higher. Third, empowering Family Courts to recover these assets should reduce the need for further litigation in higher courts.”

Miss Helena Saeed, former Additional Inspector General of Police, elucidates, “I agree that bridal jewellery and gifts are a bride’s right, keeping in view the guidance of the Quran and Sharia. I wholeheartedly welcome this judgment.”

Doorstep justice

For years, I have argued that the answer lies not only in stronger judgments but also in stronger systems. I call this ‘Doorstep Justice’: preventing disputes before they arise rather than resolving them after years of litigation.

Justice should begin before the baraat arrives, not after a marriage has collapsed. If ownership of bridal property is clearly documented on the wedding day, many disputes may never need to reach a courtroom.

Every significant wedding gift should be transparently recorded, identifying the donor, the intended recipient and the legal owner. Such documentation should become part of the marriage record, with copies retained by both families and securely preserved by the relevant public authority.

Equally important is recognising that intimidating dowry demands are not harmless cultural practices but forms of economic, psychological and, at times, physical abuse. In my own advocacy against dowry as a form of gender-based violence affecting both women and men, I have long argued (though often in vain) that when a gift becomes a demand, it becomes a form of violence.

Pakistan’s existing dowry law - the Dowry and Bridal Gifts (Restriction) Act, 1976, which has been amended several times since its enactment - only restricts and regulates dowry; it does not prohibit it. Since the 18th Amendment devolved this subject to the provinces in 2010, none of them has closed this legal gap by introducing a comprehensive prohibition law of the kind already enacted in India and Bangladesh.

What Pakistan needs is a complete legal and social understanding that dowry and bridal gifts are two distinct categories, along with non-negotiable protective clauses in the nikahnama: a woman’s right to divorce (khula), her right to work and other safeguards for her interests.

Families may voluntarily exchange gifts according to tradition, but extortion, harassment, or violence linked to dowry must attract swift legal consequences. Documentation protects honest families; accountability deters abusive ones. The goal is not to legitimise dowry, but to ensure that property intended exclusively for a woman remains hers in both law and practice.

The Supreme Court has clarified ownership rights. The State must now simplify enforcement.

A call for policy action

This judgment offers Pakistan an opportunity to move beyond case-by-case litigation and towards meaningful systemic reform. I propose the following measures for national consideration:

• Treat the unlawful withholding or misappropriation of a bride’s jewellery and personal property as a cognisable offence, enabling prompt police intervention rather than leaving women solely to lengthy civil proceedings.

• Recognise dowry-related abuse as a form of violence, with stronger legal consequences for coercive demands, harassment, dowry-related injuries and deaths.

• Introduce a mandatory Wedding Gift Register to record significant gifts exchanged during marriage ceremonies, identifying the donor, intended recipient and legal owner.

• Include a standard, non-negotiable clause in the nikahnama recording the ownership of jewellery, gifts and other valuable wedding property, to be signed by both parties and witnesses.

• Establish simplified, time-bound recovery procedures, supported by public awareness campaigns informing families that a bride’s personal property remains exclusively hers under Pakistani law.

• Digitise these records through Union Councils or other designated public authorities to ensure their secure preservation and easy retrieval.

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed an important principle of justice: what belongs to a woman remains hers before, during and after marriage. That deserves applause but no woman should have to spend years and lakhs of rupees recovering what was legally hers from the day she married.

I hope and pray that this decision remains intact and is implemented in letter and spirit and that it does not meet the fate of other progressive family-law rulings that the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has, in the past, set aside as “un-Islamic.” It must be underscored that the CII is an advisory constitutional body whose recommendations are strictly recommendatory and directory. It has no legal authority or judicial power to overrule, nullify, or reject binding judgments issued by the High Courts or the Supreme Court. Pakistan does not lack groundbreaking judgments; what it lacks is the will to let them stand.

What Pakistan requires now is an anti-patriarchal law and a justice system that reaches women at their doorstep rather than at the end of a decade-long trial. A woman should not have to choose between claiming her property and keeping her marriage intact, nor between seeking justice and being told that she has shamed her family by asking for it. Treating a wife as an equal stakeholder from the outset, rather than as a petitioner years later, is what actually prevents violence against women - not punishment after the fact, but the removal of the conditions that allow it in the first place.

None of this threatens marriage as an institution. A marriage held together by financial control or the fear of dispossession was never one worth protecting to begin with.

Pakistan’s next reform must carry justice beyond the courtroom and to the doorstep, so that a woman’s property, safety and place as an equal partner in marriage are not prizes she wins after years of litigation, but rights she holds from the very beginning.

Dr Rakhshinda Perveen is a published author and a gender justice expert. She can be reached at [email protected]