The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c17.s2.12

c17.s2.12

The discontinuance of *upanayana*, the neglect of education and the lowering of the marriage age produced disastrous consequences upon the position and status of women. Early marriage put an effective impediment in the higher education of girls. Brides being too young and inexperienced, ceased to have any effective voice in the settlement of their marriages. *Svayaṁvara* continued to be in vogue in Kshatriya circles, but it came to be condemned by Brahmanical writers. Love marriages became a thing of the past. Child wives with no education worth the name became the order of the day, and they could not naturally command respect from their husbands. Not infrequently parents had to marry their daughters in a hurry, lest the girls should attain puberty before their marriage. The matches arranged under such circumstances were often ill suited, and women were thus often compelled to spend their lives with unsuitable or unworthy partners. It is painful to find that Smṛiti writers should have come forward to preach the gospel that a wife should always revere her husband as God, even if he were a moral wreck.