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The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c7.s5: Qualifications of the Parties

The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c7.s5

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English

Qualifications of the Parties

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Let us now consider the question of the qualifications of the bride and bridegroom. Wealth, beauty, health, intelligence and good family were the main considerations in the selection of the bride and the bridegroom. Naturally opinion was not unanimous about the relative importance to be attached to each of these factors, and we find different advocates claiming superiority for each of them. In actual practice different persons must have been swayed by different considerations.

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Dumb, deaf, blind or lame persons were naturally regarded as undesirable spouses. Marriages with them were however not regarded as invalid, probably because it was realised that they too have the sex instinct and are perhaps in greater need for a partner in life than ordinary individuals. Levirate was current in early times and so even impotency was not regarded as an insuperable impediment. The instance of Pāṇḍu shows that in such cases the wife could get issues by levirate. Manu includes children of impotent persons among his list of heirs¹. When however, levirate went out of vogue on account of its strong condemnation by the reformist school, marriages with impotent persons were declared to be invalid by writers like Parāśara and Nārada.² Both these jurists allow the wife of an impotent person to remarry. When, however, remarriages went out of vogue, this remedy became unavailable.

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¹ यद्यर्थिता तु दारैः स्यात्क्लीबादीनां कथंचन । तेषामुत्पन्नतन्तूनामपत्यं दायमर्हति ॥, IX, 203.

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² अपत्यार्थं स्त्रियः सृष्टाः स्त्री क्षेत्रं बीजिनो नराः । क्षेत्रं बीजवते देयं नाबीजी क्षेत्रमर्हति ॥ *Nārada*, XII, 19.

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The present day rule, which prohibits marriages between persons of the same *gotra*, was unknown to society for a long time. The very conception of *gotra* as a group of persons connected with each other by spiritual or blood relationship was unknown in the Vedic age. The word *gotra* occurs in the Vedic literature, but it is used there in the sense of a cow-pen. The prohibition of *sagotra* and *sapravara* marriages does not go back to a period much earlier than *c.* 600

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B. C., and is probably due to the influence of a cognate custom prevailing among the non-Aryans, which interdicted marriages among the worshippers of the same totem. The prohibition first appears in the Gṛihya Sūtra literature and is subsequently accepted by later writers. A *sagotra* marriage was very seriously viewed by Smṛiti and Nibandha writers, who could never think of validating it by the theory of the *factum valet*. The modern law courts also regard it as illegal. There is however no point in continuing this ban now; *gotras* were originally merely surnames and members of the same *gotra* have no real tie of consanguinity. And even if we suppose that there originally existed such a tie, it would be hardly rational or eugenic now to prohibit marriages on that account. For, members of any particular *gotra* existing to-day are removed by hundreds of generations from its original founder.

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The caste also did not raise any insurmountable barrier in the way of marriage for a long time. Even in the days of Manu the system was much more flexible than it is to-day, both as regards inter-marriages and inter-dining. The question of inter-caste marriages cannot be discussed here in detail; we may however observe that *anuloma* marriages and *i.e.*, marriages of males of higher castes with females of lower ones, were not uncommon in society down to the eighth century A. D. Even orthodox Smṛiti and Nibandha writers regarded them as legal, though not commendable, down to the 14th century A. D. Dharmaśāstra authors further lay down rules governing the shares of inheritance of sons born from wives of different castes.¹ Nor do they forget to enlighten us about the different periods of ceremonial impurity to be observed in case the relation dying happens to be of a different caste². That rules on these points should be found necessary to be laid down shows that inter-caste marriages of the *anuloma* type were not infrequent at least among the Brāhmaṇas, Kshatriyas and Vaiśyas.

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¹ नानावर्णस्त्रीसमवाये दायं दशांशान्कृत्वा चतुरस्त्रीन्द्र्यावेकमिति यथाक्रमं विभजेत् । *B. D. S.*, II. 2, 19.

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² ब्राह्मणस्य क्षत्रियविट्शूद्रेषु सपिण्डेषु षड्रात्रत्रि त्रिकरात्रेः ।

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Epigraphical and literary evidence shows the same thing. The Brāhmaṇa king Agnimitra of the Śuṅga family had married a Kshatriya princess named Mālavikā in *c.* 150 B. C. A fifth century inscription records how a Brāhmaṇa of a respectable family, Soma by name, had married a Kshatriya lady 'in accordance with the precepts of Śrutis and Smṛitis'³, and not out of any frivolity. The Vākāṭaka minister Hastivarman was descended from him. At about the same time a Kadamba ruler, though a Brāhmaṇa by caste, gave his daughter in marriage to the Guptas, who were Vaiśyas. As the bride belonged to a higher caste than the bridegroom, this was not only an inter-caste but also a *pratiloma* marriage, which is very vehemently condemned by Smṛiti writers. The founder of the Pratihāra family, king Harichandra (*c.* 550

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³ सोमस्ततः सोम इवापरोऽभूत्स ब्राह्मणः क्षत्रियवंशजासु । श्रुतिस्मृतिभ्यां विहितार्थकारी द्वयीसु भार्यासु मनो दधार ॥ *A. S. W. I.*, Vol. IV, p. 140.

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⁴ तेन श्रीहरिश्चंद्रेण परिणीता द्विजात्मजा । द्वितीया क्षत्रिया भद्रा म[हाकुलगुणा]न्विता ॥ *E. I.*, XVIII, p. 87.

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A. D.), had both a Brahmana and a Kshatriya wife. The father of poet Bāṇa had a Śūdra wife as well, and her children were living in the same household. Rājaśekhara, a poet laureate at the Gurjara Pratīhāra court, had married a cultured Kshatriya lady in *c.* 860 A. D. In the *Kathāsaritsāgara* we often find the daughter being asked by her father as to which of the suitors belonging to the four castes met their approval¹. When Brahmana Aśokadatta was married to a princess, the author of the above book records his hearty approval of the union; 'the marriage between the princess and the Brahmana youth appeared to mutual advantage like the union of learning with modesty².

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¹ एषां चतुर्णां वर्णानां पुत्रि कोऽभिमतस्तव । 53, 108.

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² तयोस्तु सोऽभूद्राजन्यपुत्रीविप्रेन्द्रपुत्रयोः । संगमोऽन्योन्यशोभायै विद्याविनययोरिव ॥ 25, 171.

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It was from about the 10th century A. D. that intercaste marriages began to go out of fashion. Alberuni (*c.* 1020 A. D.) observes that the Brahmanas of his day no longer availed themselves of the permission to take wives from the three lower castes. Kalhaṇa, the 12th century Brahmana historian of Kashmir, had to record the marriage of a sister of king Saṁgrāmarāja (1003-1028 A. D.) with a Brahmana youth. The marriage evidently shocked him, and he does not fail to express his regret that the king should not have realised how he was bringing his family into disgrace by such an intercaste union³. Several 16th and 17th century travellers have noted how intercaste marriages were quite unknown to the contemporary Hindu society.

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³ पर्याप्तं तस्य भीरुत्वं कियदन्वत्प्रकाशयताम् । असमैर्यानसंबन्धैश्चक्षमे यशसः क्षतिम् ॥ VII, 10.

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Intercaste marriages were permitted down to the 10th century because the cultural differences between the members of the different twice-born castes were not many or far-reaching. They all performed *upanayana*, and observed the various sacraments laid down for them. They were all non-vegetarians; even Brahmanas used to eat meat when they took part in Vedic or ancestral sacrifices. Things began to change gradually, and by about the 9th century, the cultural gulf between different castes became too wide to permit of happy and harmonious inter-marriages. Under the influence of growingly rigorous notions of puritanism Brahmanas gave up Vedic sacrifices and meat-eating; not content with one daily bath, they began to have two or even three ablutions a day. Sandhyā prayers could never have been more than two in the earlier times, now a third one was added at the midday. A number of new *vratas* came to be prescribed. The Brahmana community as a whole used to conform to the new standard as much as possible. Other castes, however, could not only not follow the new standard, but found it difficult to maintain the old one. Thus all the *dvijas*, *i.e.*, Brahmanas, Kshatriyas and Vaiśyas, were authorised to study the Vedas. From Alberuni, however, we learn that the Vaiśyas had ceased to avail themselves of this privilege long before the 10th century, and even as regards Kshatriyas, although a few of them were still studying the Vedas, marriage and other ceremonies were performed in their case with Pauranik and not with Vedic prayers and formulæ. This shows that the rule permitting Vedic studies to them had practically become a dead letter. Kshatriyas and Vaiśyas could not accept the prohibition of meat-eating, laid down and followed by Brahmanas. When the cultural differences between the Brahmanas and other castes had` become so wide, inter-caste marriages were found to be highly undesirable. How could, for instance, the marriage between a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian be found feasible ? Marriages between Brahmanas and non-Brahmanas first went out of vogue. When Brahmanas made their own group endogamous, other castes followed suit, and in course of time inter-caste marriages even of the *anuloma* type, though permitted by Smṛitis, disappeared from society.

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Who can deny that the prohibition of intercaste marriages was a reform in the right direction when it was introduced? The cultural disparity, which was its main cause, is however now diminishing owing to the wide spread of a homogenous culture and education. If we consider the question of inter-caste marriages in modern Hindu society from the cultural and sociological view point, as distinguished from the theological one, we shall have to conclude that their revival would not be against the spirit of Hinduism, if the parties contracting them are of the same cultural level and outlook. The few intercaste marriages that are taking place now a days usually satisfy this condition. They cannot become more frequent until the cultural differences between different castes and sub-castes substantially disappear.

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