Caste and Race in India c8.83

c8.83

Marriage with a Śūdra female, though theoretically allowed for all the castes, is discountenanced in many practical ways. First, even Baudhāyana and Kauṭilya, who look with no disfavour on the marriage of a male of a higher caste with a female of the next lower caste, do not concede the social status of its father to the child of a Vaiśya by a Śūdra female. Kauṭilya regards such an issue as Śūdra, while Baudhāyana calls it Rathakāra. Vasiṣṭha expressly forbids any of the first three castes to marry a Śūdra female. Such a union according to him leads to the degradation of the family in this life and to loss of heavenly bliss in the next.¹ He forbids a householder, who has built the fire-altar for a Śrauta sacrifice, to approach a Śūdra wife, for she is meant for pleasure and not for the fulfilment of the sacred duties. He quotes an opinion that the issue of a Brahmin male and a Śūdra female is as impure as a corpse.² Gautama places the claims of such offspring on a par with the rights of persons that are the issue of marriages between lower caste males and females of the higher castes because both of them are outside the pale of the sacred law.³ Thus the lawgivers definitely set their face against the marriages of men of the first three castes with Śūdra females. This is the first pronounced restriction on marriage of the nature of endogamy in Hindu society.