History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c40.138

v3.c40.138

Manu IX. 80 and Yāj. I. 73 say that a wife who drinks liquor is to be abandoned (even if she be a śūdra woman married to a brāhmaṇa). The Mit. on Yāj. I. 73 quotes a text (of Parāśara X. 26 and Vas. Dh. S. 21. 15) that half of the body of him whose wife drinks *surā* is guilty of grave sin¹⁹⁰⁴ (on Yāj. III. 256 it is ascribed to Manu). Vas. Dh. S. (21. 11) says that a brāhmaṇa wife who drinks *surā* is not allowed by the gods to reach the world of her husband (after death) and that she wanders in this world as a leech in water or as an oyster.¹⁹⁰⁵ Yāj. III. 256 says the same and adds that such a wife becomes in her subsequent lives a bitch, a vulture or a pig in this world itself.