Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.665

c7.665

Though among the Dravidian tribes of the south, the Tibetan tribes in the north and the Burmese tribes in the east divorces are very common for which only mutual consent is needed, in Indian law it is considered to be a sin if the married couple separate on account of mutual aversion (Nār. 12, 90). For this reason the Muhammedan Alberuni (2, 154) was struck by the absence divorce in India. The connection established by a public ceremony with great pomp and expense as early in life as possible lays the foundation of a life-long relation and it should not be broken off so lightly. According to the most popular view, as we have already seen, the duty on the part of the wife extended even beyond the grave and the chances of her forming a second marriage are precluded by the general interdiction of widow remarriage even in those cases where such a marriage may be allowed, viz., if the husband is absent for a long time or has disappeared altogether or if he is impotent, or if he has been compelled to secede from citizen life on account of his excommunication out of his caste or if he has joined a spiritual order.¹ Already M. 9, 79 speaks about the conduct of a wife towards an impotent or excommunicated husband and thus presupposes that inspite of this ground for separation she still remains with him. Nār. in 12, 96 grants to the relations of the wife and eventually to the wife herself the right of contracting a fresh marriage if any defect in the husband, previously kept concealed, is discovered ; but even this Nār. in 12, 3 allows only an engagement to be broken off in such a case and when dealing with the punishment for concealing the defects in the bride or the bridegroom or for falsely imputing to them any defects of which they are innocent (30-37), he takes only the engagement into consideration and not marriage.¹