Section 18 – Maintenance of wife

1. Subject of the provisions of the section a Hindu wife, whether married before or after the commencement of this Act, shall be entitled to be maintained by her husband during her life-time.
2. A Hindu wife shall be entitled to live separately from her husband without forfeiting her claim to maintenance
   1. If he is guilty of desertion, that is to say, of abandoning her without reasonable cause and without her consent or against her wish, or of wilfully neglecting her;
   2. If he has treated her with cruelty as to cause a reasonable apprehension in her mind that it will be harmful or injurious to live with her husband;
   3. If he is suffering from virulent from leprosy;
   4. If he has other wife living;
   5. If he keeps a concubine in the same house in which his wife is living or habitually resides with a concubine elsewhere;
   6. If he is caused to be a Hindu by conversion to another religion;
   7. If there is any other cause justifying her living separately.
3. A Hindu wife shall not be entitled to separate residence and maintenance from her husband if she is unchaste or ceases to be a Hindu by conversion to another religion.

Section 19 – Maintenance of widowed daughter-in-law

1. A Hindu wife, whether married before or after the commencement of this Act, shall be entitled to be maintained after the death of her husband by her father-in-law.

   Provided and to the extent that she is unable to maintain herself out of her own earning or other property or, where she has no property of her own, is unable to obtain maintenance-

   1. from the estate of her husband or her father or mother, or
   2. from her son or daughter, if any, or his or her estate.
2. Any obligation under sub-section (1) shall not be enforceable if the father-in-law has not the means to do so from any coparcenary property in his possession out of which the daughter-in-law has not obtained any share, and any such obligation shall cease on the remarriage of the daughter-in-law.

Section 20 – Maintenance of children and aged parents

1. Subject to the provisions of this section a Hindu is bound during his or her lifetime, to maintain his or her legitimate or illegitimate children and his or her aged or infirm parents.
2. A legitimate or illegitimate child may claim maintenance from his or her father or mother so long as the child is a minor.
3. The obligation of a person to maintain his or her aged or infirm parents or a daughter who is unmarried extends in so far as the parent or the unmarried daughter, as the case may be, is unable to maintain himself or herself out of his or her own earnings or other property.

Explanation: In this section parent includes a childless step-mother.



   
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