The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c23.47

v1.c23.47

The rule in regard to the levirate, or the assignment of widows to another man to raise up sons for the deceased husband, is another instance of the way in which the codes were assembled out of contradictory material. In Manu, IX, 64–68, there is a flat contradiction of the preceding provisions on this point. No remarriage and no assignment of widows are permitted in a passage directly following the injunction that a widow shall be so assigned, for the purpose of giving her dead husband a son to pay him the funeral feast, etc.