The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s6.83

c2.s6.83

[^ *]: xiii. 45. 18 : compare M. iii. 54 with the following. [^ †]: i. 102. 12; see below, under marriage-forms. [^ ‡]: vii. 73. 42 (equal in sin to one courting a rajasvalā, or to an asyamāithunika, or ye divā māithune ratāḥ (ib. 43). C. omits this). [^ §]: In i. 103. 14, vṛttaṃ çulkahetoḥ is a mere promise on the part of the suitor. [^ ‖]: Compare in i. 221. 4, pradānam api kanyāyāḥ paçuvat ko ‘numanyate, vikrayaṃ cā’py apatyasya kaḥ kuryāt puruṣo bhuvi. The king of Madras says to a suitor who does not offer a price, ‘you suit me exactly, but I cannot transgress our law; whether bad or good, I cannot transgress our family custom, and there is an impropriety in your request; you should not say: “sir, give me (without a price, this sister),” ’ i. 113. 9–13; ib. 10. The suitor paid the price; and he is the greatest saint in the Epic. Not content with paying, he says the rule is a good rule, a rule of God, a law enforced by the ancients, a law without sin; ib. 13. [^ ¶]: xiii. 111. 83: compare also xiii. 44: if one man gives a fee for a girl, another is promised the girl, another abducts her, another offers money, and another actually weds her—whose wife would she be? The answer is, that the Vedic ceremony makes the real marriage, and the promise is invalid in face of the fact that the girl is now wedded: followed, however, by condemnation of one that gives to one man after promise to another; so that the marriage is clandestine (28). In the following the fee-theory is stated in full: ‘the fee does not decide the marriage; it is not the chief thing; a gift (to the bride) of ornaments does not imply that she is sold; eternal law proclaims that the husband should give something; it is of no consequence if one gives a verbal promise of a daughter; a girl should not be given to one she hates; a wife may not be sold; those that maintain that the fee given before or at marriage is really sales-money and the chief thing (and that the woman passes into her owner’s hands solely on account of this) do not understand. For instance, if a man gives the fee for a girl and dies before marriage, the girl does not belong to his family; therefore the fee is not a price paid for chattel. The girl may marry some one else, or form a levirate marriage with the dead groom’s brother (so Manu), or act like a widow (as usual, the Epic puts into the argument what destroys it; the statement that the girl in some cases weds the brother or acts like a widow shows It remains to add of the marriage-money that Strabo attests the fact that a yoke of oxen was given by the suitor as a price for the girl (xv. p. 709). On the other hand, the wife’s dowry is an unpledged sum given by the father to the daughter or son-in-law; in royal marriages the gift is often handsome. ‘A befitting dowry’ is sometimes spoken of; a king gives his new son-in-law a princely gift; Drupada gives gifts to all the knights when his daughter is married, horses, elephants, women (slaves), etc.; and Krishna carries the haraṇam of Subhadrā from her home to that of the Pāṇdus.* Compare the gift of King Virāṭa to his son-in-law when his daughter is married—seven thousand horses and two hundred elephants (iv. 72. 36). It made some difference whether the father gave to the bride or to the bridegroom, as the wife’s property included ‘gifts at marriage’ (M. ix. 194).