History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c29.58

v2.c29.58

S. II. 10. 26. 10-11). Vas. Dh. S. 19. 23 limits this exemption to women who are young or just delivered of a child. Pregnant women from the third month of pregnancy, forest hermits, saṁnyāsins and brāhmaṇas and brahmacārins had to pay no tax at a ferry (Manu VIII. 407 and Viṣṇu V. 132). According to Gaut. V. 23 and Yāj. I. 105 children, the daughters and sisters who are married and yet stay with their parents or brothers, pregnant women, unmarried daughters, guests and servants are to be fed before the master and mistress of the house; while Manu III. 114 and Viṣṇu Dh. S. 67. 39 go a step further and say that freshly married girls of the family, unmarried girls, pregnant women are to be fed even before guests. A judicial proceeding in which a woman was a party, or which was heard at night or outside the village or inside a house (i. e. not in public) or before enemies was liable to be reviewed (Nārada ¹⁴⁰⁰ I. 43). Ordinarily trial by ordeal did not apply to a woman, whether she was plaintiff or defendant, but if at all a woman had to prove her case by ordeal, only the ordeal of *tulā* (balance) was prescribed for her (Yāj. II. 98 and Mit. thereon). In succession to *strīdhana* property, daughters were preferred to sons. Women did not lose their strīdhana by adverse possession (Yāj. II. 25, Nārada, ṛṇādāna 82-83). Women were always to be consulted about ācāra. Āp. Dh. S. II. 11. 29. 15 cites the view that rules not stated in the sūtra are, according to some teachers, to be understood from women and from men of all castes. Āp. gṛ. II. 15 prescribes that in marriage the usages to be followed are to be learnt from women. Vide also Āśv. gṛ. I. 14. 8, Manu II. 223, Vaik. III. 21. ¹⁴⁰¹