The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c6.27

c6.27

If female infanticide had at all been practised, it must have been confined to a very small section of society. If the evil had been fairly common, Smṛiti writers would certainly have denounced it very vehemently. When we note how eloquent they grow in condemning the conduct of a father who would sell his daughter in marriage, we cannot but conclude that they would have consigned to the most dreadful hell those parents who were guilty of exposing their daughters at birth, because they were unwelcome. Smṛiti writers regard the destruction of an embryo as the most heinous crime; the murder of a child born alive could not have escaped their thundering denunciation.