History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c26.301

v2.c26.301

The next question is as to who have power to arrange for the marriage of a girl and to give her away. The Viṣṇu Dh. S. (24. 38–39) specifies the order of persons who are entitled to exercise this right of guardianship in marriage ‘the father, the paternal grand-father, a brother, a kinsman, a maternal grand-father and the mother are the persons, by whom the girl may be given away in marriage. In the absence of the preceding one (the right) devolves upon the next in order, in case he is able’. Yāj. (I. 63–64) gives a slightly different order viz. he omits the maternal grand-father and adds that the right can be exercised only when the guardian is not affected by lunacy and similar defects and that in the absence of these the girl should perform svayaṁvara (i. e. choose a husband herself). Nārada¹¹⁶⁹ (strīpuṁsa verses 20-22) gives the order as father, brother (with father's consent), paternal grand-father, maternal uncle, agnates, cognates, mother (if sound in mind and body), then distant relations, then the maiden may perform svayaṁvara with the king's permission. To give away a girl in marriage was not only a right but was rather a heavy responsibility, as (Yāj. I. 64) and others declare that if a girl is not got married by the guardian at the proper time the latter incurs the sin of the murder of an embryo. The practice of svayaṁvara is well known from the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, but it was confined mostly to the princely families. Manu (IX. 90-91) required a girl to wait for three years after she became marriageable before she could choose her husband herself. But Viṣṇu Dh. S. 24. 40 says that a girl should wait only for three monthly periods after she attains puberty and that after that period she has full power to dispose of herself in marriage as she thinks best.