Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.303

v1.c5.303

¹ When the ape in the 219th Jātaka (which I have edited in my *Kāvyasamgraha, Metrische Übersetzungen aus indischen und andern Sprachen*) comes back again to his brethren in the forest, he tells them, as characteristic of the topsy-turvy world of men, how wives are bought in it for much money. Many such instances could be quoted. From the law literature, too, it comes out more or less incidentally in many places that marriage by purchase was the general thing. Manu, for instance, is very hard against purchase marriage (iii, 25; 51-54; ix, 98-100); and yet in ix, 93 and viii, 366 the bride-price for the daughter appears as the father's natural right. Other passages are given by Bühler in his translation of this law-book, p. xciii. Baudhāyana, i, 11, 21.1-3 and ii, 2.27 paints the sinfulness of such a proceeding in vivid colours, but grants in i, 11, 20.12 that it is lawful, at least for the Kshattriya. Nārada in xii, 54, even thunders: Only the husband of the unbought woman is a real husband and owner; if a price has been given for a woman, then the children begotten by another man belong to the wife; not to the husband, but to the lover. But the earlier quoted passage in xii, 30, shows, however, that the "maiden for whom a bride-price (çulka) has been given" has the same meaning with him also as the "betrothed". Indeed, Vasisṭha, i, 36, has instead of Āsura simply Mānusha "the way of bringing home with mankind". Cp. 36 and 37 and Bühler's note on it in *Sacred Books*