History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.972

v4.c63.972

not to deck herself or apply or use perfumes &c.), to lie on the ground (not on a bed-stead or couch), was to receive bare maintenance. After performing prāyaścitta she was restored to her former position. Acc. to Yāj. II. 286 and Bṛ. (S. B. E. 33 p. 366 verse 12), for adultery (in which there is consent) the highest fine is prescribed for the male in the case of a woman of the same caste, half of this in the case of a woman lower in caste (than the paramour), but when adultery is committed with a woman of a higher caste the male shall be put to death and the woman shall have her ears and the like cut off. Vide Shakespeare's Othello IV. 1, where Othello exclaims 'I see that nose of yours but not that dog I shall throw it to'. There were other sages who were humane and opposed to the punishment of disfigurement by way of the cutting of the ear or the nose. Yama982a states that in the case of a woman guilty of adultery at her will, there was to be no punishment of death or disfigurement, but only abandonment. Kāt. (487) lays down the general rule that in all offences women should be sentenced to half the fine in money which is prescribed for a male and that when the punishment is death for a male the punishment for a woman would be cutting off a limb (vide note 626).