The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c10.s2.14

c10.s2.14

Owing to the growing influence of the ascetic ideals, the opposition to widow remarriage began to grow stronger and stronger from *c.* 200 A. D. Vishṇu recommends celibacy to the widow. Manu lays down that a widow should never even think of remarriage after her husband's death³. Nārada (*c.* 500 A. D.) can think of a girl's marriage only once (XII, 28). Elsewhere, however, he allows a woman to remarry if her husband had expired, or entered a monastery, or gone out on a long journey. Parāśara concurs with this view⁴. The contradictory provisions, that we sometimes come across in works like *Nāradasmṛiti* of this period, would show that though widow marriages were getting unpopular in Brahmana community, they were still common among the other classes. The famous emperor Chandragupta Vikramāditya, (*c.* 375-414 A. D.), who was probably a Vaiśya by caste, had married his elder brother's wife after the death of her husband. Kumāragupta, a son of this union, became an heir to the Gupta empire.