The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c6.12

c6.12

As time passed on, the above circumstances gradually changed. The importance of ancestor-worship increased and sons alone were regarded as eligible for offering oblations to the manes; daughters could not perform this very important religious duty. Child marriages came into vogue from about the beginning of the Christian era, and soon thereafter both levirate (*niyoga*) and widow remarriage were prohibited. Inter-caste marriages began to be disapproved by society; and there came into existence hundreds of sub-castes all insisting upon mutual exogamy. The field of choice for the selection of a suitable son-in-law thus became very narrow, intensifying thereby the anxiety of the daughter's father about the selection of a proper bridegroom. If a cruel fate inflicted widowhood upon the daughter, the calamity would break the parents' heart. Remarriage being no longer possible, parents had to bear the heart-rending pain of seeing their daughter wasting herself in an interminable widowhood. The growing prevalence of the Satī custom from about the 5th century A. D. added to the poignancy of the grief ; parents had often to pass through the terrible ordeal of seeing their daughters burning themselves alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands. To become a daughter's parent thus became a source of endless worry and misery.