The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c10.s1.5

c10.s1.5

In early societies, a son by levirate was always preferred to a son by adoption. An adopted son presupposed a tremendous legal fiction, for which society was not yet ripe. A Vedic sage declares that an adoptive son born of another is no son at all². He was an absolute stranger; he had no blood of the family running in his veins. A son by Niyoga, on the other hand, had the blood of the mother. He had of course not the blood of his father, but he had at least that of a near relative. A son born of Niyoga therefore resembled a real son as nearly as possible. We can now well understand why in the list of subsidiary sons given in Dharmasūtras, a son by Niyoga usually occupies the second position, coming immediately next after the real or *aurasa* son. The custom was in fact fairly common in early times in India. Several heroes of the Mahābhārata and Purāṇas were born of Niyoga. ‘If a woman loses her husband’, says the great epic, ‘she marries her brother-in-law’¹.