The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c7.s7.3

c7.s7.3

If, however, we examine carefully the earlier Dharmaśāstra literature, we find that divorces were permitted before the beginning of the Christian era under certain well-defined circumstances. It is interesting to note that even Manu himself observes elsewhere in his book that a wife is not to blame if she abandons a husband, who is impotent, insane, or suffering from an incurable or contagious disease². This abandonment of the husband practically amounted to a divorce, for Manu permits such a wife to remarry if her previous marriage was not consummated³. The children of the new union were legal heirs to their parents. In actual practice, however, down to about the beginning of the Christian era, divorces and remarriages took place now and then in all sections of society even after the consummation of the first marriage. The Atharvaveda in one place refers to a woman marrying again, very probably in the lifetime of her first husband; it lays down a ritual intended to unite her permanently in heaven with her husband (IX, 5, 27-8). Her second marriage of course presupposed a divorce. Dharmasūtra writers (400 B. C. to 100 A. D.) lay it down that a Brahmana woman should wait for her husband gone out on a long journey for five years; Kauṭilya reduces this period to ten months only (III 4). If the husband did not return within that time and she was unwilling or unable to go out to join him, she should regard him as dead and unite herself with another member of the same family or *gotra*¹. Similar permission is given by the *Arthaśāstra* of Kauṭilya which requires judicial permission before contracting the second marriage². Jurists differ only about the period of waiting, which however never exceeds eight years. Parāśara's permission to remarry given to the wife of a person, who is impotent or has become a religious recluse or is boycotted, clearly presupposes the possibility of divorce from the earlier marriage³.