The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c16.27

c16.27

The early Hindu thinkers recognised that the phrase, it is human to err, is as much applicable to women as to men, and they were prepared to treat lapses of women from the marriage vow with a fair amount of sympathy and commiseration. In the Vedic period we find that women who had gone astray, were allowed to take part even in religious service, provided they confessed their error³. Early Dharmaśāstra writers also were fairly lenient; Vasishṭha, for instance, has no objection to the readmission of a woman who had voluntarily gone astray, provided she really repented and submitted to a proper penance (*ante*, p. 370 n. 1). Parāśara recommends that a woman should be abandoned, only if she is a confirmed sinner (X, 35). Yājñāvalkya would advise this step only if adultery had resulted in conception (I, 72). The same is the view of the Mahābhārata, which further points out that man is usually more to blame in such offenes than woman¹. Other writers have suggested that a woman should be driven out of the house only if her associate were a person of very low caste². Otherwise she was to be segregated in the house and excluded from religious functions and privileges³.