The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c7.s4.9

c7.s4.9

Details of how love marriages were usually arranged can be gathered from Sanskrit drama and fiction and the *Kāmasūtras* of Vātsyāyana. The Dharmaśāstra literature is silent on the topic, partly because it disapproved of Gāndharva marriages, and partly because most of it was composed when child marriages had come into vogue rendering love unions impossible. References in Vedic literature to lovers yearning for each other, moving in each other's company, exchanging mutual presents, using spells for ensuring reciprocal affection have been already given, (*ante*, pp. 58-9) and they will enable the reader to get some idea of how love marriages used to take place at that time. The most detailed and circumstantial description is to be found in the *Kāmasūtras* of Vātsyāyana (III, 5). Love would start with the accidental meeting of the parties in a garden or a show. Sometimes these meetings used to be deliberately brought about by their friends or guardians, who were anxious to see them