The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c23.53

v1.c23.53

We see in the law-books the king of a limited realm still more or less of a patriarch among his people³; a people divided into general orders representing the military, priestly, and agricultural or mercantile classes, still mingling freely with each other, intermarrying, but with due regard for the respect paid to the higher orders, and utterly devoid of the 'caste' rules later adopted in respect of food and marriage. The family is usually monogamous though it may be polygamous, and there are traces of the family-marriage, in which a wife marries a group of brothers. The menial work of house-life is carried on by slaves and half-breeds, who also do most of the village labour and serve as petty craftsmen. More skilled workers like chariot-makers are of almost Āryan rank and are not excluded from society. The laws are harsh and cruel as regards punishment (the worker in gold who defrauds the king, for example, is, according to Manu, IX, 292, 'to be chopped to pieces with knives'), but a regard for truth and justice is the dominant trait of the law, which, if it may be personified, has at times a naïve air of blandly but perplexedly seeking to steer a course between that which it thinks is right and ought to think is right, because the one has been reasoned out and the other has been handed down as part of 'revelation' or law divine¹.