Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.536

c7.536

is allowed only to the Vaiśyas and the Śūdras (M. 3, 24; Mah. 1, 73, 11 etc.).¹ Of course, general protests against every form of the purchase of women is one of the favourite themes of the Smṛtis. According to M. 9, 98 ff. (cf. Baudh. 1, 21, 2 f. etc.), even for a Śūdra it is prohibited to accept price for his daughter when giving her in marriage as it would be an act of trading in a veiled form which was never heard of in the past. Even the giving away of the bride for a cow and a bull at the Ārṣa Vivāha, allowed to the Brahmans, should be taken merely as a homage to the bride (M. 3, 51-54). Even the recompense of 100 cows for the bride is said to be merely a formality, specially as the bridegroom receives the present back (Āp. 2,13,12). It is possible that the Ārṣa Vivāha had already changed into a mock purchase in which a cow and a bull were given to the bride’s father by the bridegroom only for form’s sake and which were given back to the bridegroom by the latter as the commentary on Baudh. 1, 20, 4 expressly lays down. Of course, the *gomithunam* of the Smṛtis has a striking similarity with the Zeugos Boōn (yoke of oxen), in exchange for which, according to the oft-quoted statement of Strabo, Indians used to buy their wives from their parents.