The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.36

v1.c17.36

Scanty as is our information regarding the Vedic tribes, yet we can see clearly that the social and political organisation rested upon the patriarchal family, if we may use that term to denote that relationship was counted through the father. The Āryan marriage of this period was usually monogamic, though polygamy was not unknown probably mainly among the princely class; and in the household the husband was master, the wife mistress but dependent on and obedient to the master. The standard of female morality appears to have been fairly high, that of men as usual was less exigent. Polyandry is not shown by a single passage to have existed, and is not to be expected in a society so strongly dominated by the male as was the Vedic. Of limitations on marriage we learn practically nothing from the Rigveda, except that the wedlock of brother and sister and of father and daughter was not permitted. Child marriage, so usual in later times, was evidently unknown; and much freedom of choice seems to have existed. Women lived under the protection of their fathers during the life of the latter, and then they fell if still unmarried under the care of their brothers. Both dowries and bride-prices are recorded: the ill-favoured son-in-law might have to purchase his bride by large gifts, while other maidens could obtain husbands only through the generosity of their brothers in dowering them. A girl without a protector ran grave risk of being reduced to immorality to maintain herself, and even in cases where no such excuse existed we learn of cases of moral laxity. But the high value placed on marriage is shown in the long and striking hymn (x, 85) which accompanied the ceremonial, the essence of which was the mutual taking of each other in wedlock by the bride and bridegroom, and the conveyance of the bride from the house of her father to that of her husband¹. In this hymn the wedlock of Soma, here identified with the moon, and Sūryā, the daughter of the sun, is made the prototype and exemplar of marriage in general. Moreover, the Vedic marriage was indissoluble by human action, nor in the early period does it seem to have been contemplated that remarriage should take place in the case of a widow². To this there was the exception, which appears clearly in the burial ritual of the Rigveda, that the brother-in-law of the dead man should marry the widow, probably only in cases where the dead had left no son and it was therefore imperative that steps should be taken to secure him offspring; for the Rigveda recognises to the full the keen desire of the Vedic Indian for a child to perform his funeral rites.