The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s6.147.2

c2.s6.147.2

He must not steal or buy her, but may receive her as a free gift or as a fee. There is one method, called the sages’ method, where a girl is sold for a yoke of cattle. This last is the only method known to the Greeks, but is reprehended, although acknowledged as an ancient custom, by the Hindu law-givers. There is one unceremonious connection, equivalent to a free-love union. There is one method called especially the warrior’s, where a girl is stolen by force. The next method is to buy the girl for money.* There remains the forbidden rape and the ceremonious *prājāpatya*. As no real wife is made without a wedding, we may take this to be the simplest explanation of allowed household connection with women. Deducting the first two for priests, the third, preserved, although disliked, as an ancient rule, we have the connection recognized for concubines who had no wedding ceremony: one for the warriors, by force; one for the merchants, by wealth. Connection by free-love and by force might afterwards be ratified by a wedding, and the girl then becomes a wife. Thus (xiii. 44. 24 ff.), we find that a girl may be sold for connubial connection, and the man is not to blame if he has the wedding-rite performed. Had the Epic election been an old ceremony, we should doubtless find it in the earlier law-literature, nor find *svayaṃvarā* (kept till late) merely as a girl that chooses†—that is, not one given by her parents.