The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c7.s3.8

c7.s3.8

Some other arguments advanced to prove the existence of child marriages in the Vedic age may be briefly considered here. It is true that in two passages of the Ṛigveda (1, 51, 13 and 1, 116, 1) the word *arbha* has been used to denote the bride and the bridegroom. This expression, however, denotes tenderness rather than childhood, for Vimada, who has been described as an *arbha* bridegroom is seen to be defeating his rival in battle and winning his bride. This is possible only in the case of a full grown youth. In another place we find a wife praying for hair growing at the time of puberty¹; orthodox tradition itself, however, states that the cause for this prayer was not her childhood, but a skin disease from which she was suffering. Similarly in another hymn, we find a wife asserting to her husband that she is fully developed physically and has abundant marks of complete puberty on her person. This statement is not, however, made to remove the misapprehension of an ignorant husband; the wife makes it in the privacy of the bedroom to excite the passion of her husband, who had previously expressed his exuberant appreciation of her amorous skill². There is thus no data to rebut the force and evidence of the passages and circumstances mentioned in the last two paras, which go to prove that marriages in the Vedic age took place when the parties were fully grown up.