Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c8.48

c8.48

With regard to the comparative age of the couple to be married, Vātsyāyana prescribes that the bride should be younger by three years or more ³. In another passage which Vātsyāyana quotes from the *Grhyasūtra* of Āpastamba, an expression (s v a n u j ā) is taken by the Commentator ⁴ to mean “considerably less in age” and in support of his statement, he quotes a text, most probably from a *Dharma*- śāstra, which lays down that one should marry a girl who is in the fourth to the eighth year below him, that is, who is younger in age by three to seven years, neither more nor less. But the word *svanujā* is taken by others to mean a girl who has a fine younger sister ¹. The *Dharmaśāstras*, however, contemplate a far greater disparity in years, the correct ratio prescribed being generally one to three. Thus we have in the *Viṣṇu-Purāṇa*: "One should marry a wife whose age is a third of one's own", ² and the same rule is also laid down by the *Mahābhārata*—that a man of thirty years should marry a girl of ten³. Manu also prescribes the same thing, the relative proportion being either thirty and twelve or twenty-four and eight⁴. This seems to have been the ideal of the religious lawgivers, but Vātsyāyana seems to represent the actual state of things more closely. And it should be noticed that both Medhātithi and Kullūka in their comments on the passage of Manu quoted above, states that the rule about age was not absolute ⁵ but only shows the approximate relation between the ages of the couple.