History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c28.s2.52

v2.c28.s2.52

The humane character of the legislation of the Indian sages is seen by the fact that even for adultery they do not allow the husband to drive the wife out of the house and to abandon her. Gaut. 22. 35 prescribes that a wife who violates her duty of chastity must undergo a penance, but she should be kept under guard and be given food. Yāj. (I. 70, 72) declares 'an adulterous woman should be deprived of her authority (over servants &c.), should be made to wear dirty clothes, should be given food just sufficient to enable her to live, should be treated with scorn and made to lie on the ground (not on a cot); a woman becomes pure from adultery when she has her monthly period after that, but if she conceives in adulterous intercourse she may be abandoned and also when she is guilty of the murder of her foetus or of her husband or of some sin that makes her an outcast'. The Mit. on Yāj. I. 72 draws attention to the text of Vasiṣṭha XXI. 12 'the wives of brāhmaṇas,¹³²⁸ kṣatriyas and vaiśyas who commit adultery with a śūdra may be purified by a penance in case no child is born (of the intercourse), but not otherwise' and remarks that the words of Yājñavalkya are to be understood in the same sense i. e. a wife is to be abandoned only if she be in adultery with a śūdra; and further that the abandonment consists in not allowing her to participate in religious rites and conjugal matters, but she is not to be cast on the streets; she is to be kept apart guarded in a room and to be given food and raiment (as stated in Yāj. III. 297). Vasiṣṭha XXI. 10 says that only four (types of) wives are to be abandoned viz. one who has intercourse with the husband's pupil and with the husband's *guru*, and especially one who attempts to kill her husband and who commits adultery with a man of degraded caste (like a leather-worker). Nārada¹³²⁹ (strīpuṁsa v. 91) says ‘when a woman commits adultery her hair shall be shaven, she shall have to lie on a low bed, shall receive bad food and clothing and her occupation will be the removal of sweepings of the husband’s house’. Gaut. 23. 14, Śānti-parva 165. 64 and Manu VIII. 371 are more harsh on a woman who has intercourse with a low-caste man, i. e. she is to be punished by the king with being devoured by dogs. Veda-Vyāsa (II. 49–50) says that ‘a wife¹³³⁰ who is guilty of adultery should be kept in the house but void of her rights of associating in religious and conjugal matters and of her rights over property, and should be treated with scorn; but when she has had monthly course after the act of adultery (and does not repeat it), the husband should allow her the usual rights of a wife as before.’ Manu XI. 177 asks the husband to confine an exceedingly corrupt wife to one room and compel her to perform the penance¹³³¹ prescribed for males in cases of adultery. Vide Atri V. 1–5, Parāśara IV. 20 and XI. 87 and Bṛhad-Yama IV. 36.