This appal arises out of a suit, Original Suit No. 152 of 1960 filed by respondents 1 and 2 herein for partition and separate possession of their 1/6th share in the properties specified in Schedules A to C attached to the plaint. Annavi, is the fifth defendant in the suit and his sons who are now alive are defendants 1 to 4. Annavi had a son by name Arumugham who died in 1954. The first plaintiff, Pakkiam Ammal has filed the present suit for partition claiming to be the legally wedded wife of this Arumugham, her marriage having taken place in 1943. The second plaintiff is their daughter born in June, 1945. The case of the first plaintiff is that her husband Arumugham and the defendants, her father-in-law and brothers-in-law, constituted members of a joint Hindu undivided family, that all the properties involved in the suit are joint family properties, that her husband and the plaintiffs were living with the defendants in the family house at Manapparai and that even after the death of Arumugham the plaintiffs continued to be with the defendants 1 and 3 to 5 at Manapparai, that all throughout from the time of her marriage in 1943 she was acknowledged and treated as the