History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c30.32

v2.c30.32

The practice of raising issue from the widow of one's brother or marrying her was a widespread one. Vide Westermarck's 'History of Human Marriage' (1921) vol. III. pp. 207-220. In the Ṛgveda¹⁴²⁸ X. 40. 2 we read 'what sacrificer invites you (Aśvins) in his house as a widow invites a brother-in-law to her bed or as a young damsel her lover'. But it is not clear whether this refers to marrying the widow of a deceased brother or to the practice of niyoga. Viśvarūpa (on Yāj. I. 69) thinks that this refers to niyoga. The Nirukta (III. 15) explains Ṛg. X. 40. 2, where in some mss. the word 'devara' is explained as 'a second husband' (dvitīyo varaḥ). Medhātithi on Manu IX. 66 explains Ṛg. X. 40. 2 as applying to niyoga. According to the sūtras and smṛtis niyoga was entirely different from marriage. In many ancient societies, women were inherited like property. On the death of the eldest brother, his younger brother took the family property as well as his widow. But the Ṛgveda had reached a stage much beyond that. MacLennan thought that the practice of niyoga was due to polyandry. Westermarck combats this view and rightlyso. When niyoga was allowed in the sūtras, polyandry had been either unheard of or forbidden. Jolly in Recht und Sitte (English translation, pp. 156-157) thinks that apart from the religious importance of a son economic motives were at the bottom of the long list of secondary sons, including the *kṣetraja*. This appears to be quite wrong. The practice of niyoga was a relic from the past and probably owed its origin to several causes, which are now obscure, but one of which was the great hankering for a son evinced by all in Vedic times. Vas. Dh. S. (17. 1-6) lends support to this view, since after quoting Vedic passages about the importance of a son for paying off the debt to ancestors and for securing heavenly worlds, he at once proceeds to the description of the *kṣetraja*. But the economic motive was never put forward by any of the sages, nor could it possibly have been the reason and main-spring of the practice. If many secondary sons were desired for economic reasons, then the same man could have had any number of secondary sons. But the dharmaśāstra texts do not allow this. A man who has an *aurasa* son can have no kṣetraja or adopted son. If one kind of son was adopted, then another kind of son could not be adopted. So economic motives did not at all form the origin of this practice. Winternitz in J. R. A. S. for 1897 at p. 758 puts forward poverty, paucity of women and the joint family system as the causes of niyoga. There are no data to prove that there was paucity of women in India during historic times. There might have been a paucity of men owing to wars. Nor do the other two reasons bear close examination. It is better to say that niyoga was a survival from the remote past, that gradually it became rarer and rarer till in the first centuries of the Christian era it came to be totally prohibited.