The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s6.32

c2.s6.32

Let us follow out the treatment of women in another direction. It was mentioned above that in the Vedic age there is some evidence to show that female children were occasionally exposed. This had passed by. In the early Epic period, woman lived on probation. She was allowed to live until her father or her husband saw fit to slay her. From all other men, she was, so far as her life went, secure. ‘This verse has been sung of old by Vālmīki, women should not be slain’ (vii. 143. 67). This rule is, of course, not a legal one. Women were tortured to death by law, for instance, if they were faithless. But it is a rule of chivalry, forbidding the strong to kill the weaker. It is one with the advanced code of military rules discussed above, and is universally found.† This rule implies legally so much, however, that the infliction of capital punishment in regular form, *vadha*—that is, by decapitation or smiting on the head—is not in a woman's case to be performed for the many offenses rendering men liable thereto.‡ But the legal penalty for killing a woman is not in any case very heavy, and if she chance to be of low caste, it is very little. If a man kill a married woman (other than the teacher's wife—the teacher and all that belongs to him are all-sacred), he should undergo penance for two years; in the case of the teacher's wife, for three years.§