The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c26.170

v1.c26.170

Of the marriage system in India Megasthenes only understood that it was polygamous, and that brides were purchased from their parents for a yoke of oxen⁴. He seems also to have asserted that, where conjugal infidelity in a wife was due to a husband's omission to exercise vigorous control, it was condoned by public opinion⁵. At Takshaçilā, according to Aristobulus, a man unable to get his daughter married on account of poverty would sell her in the market-place⁶. Nearchus stated that among certain Indian peoples a girl was put up as the prize of victory in a boxing match; the victor obtained her without paying a price⁷. The custom by which the virtuous wife (*suttee*, *satī*) was burnt with her husband's body on the funeral pyre naturally struck the Greeks.