Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c6.111

v1.c6.111

² Patitasya tu bhāryāyā bhartrā susamavetayā. In this barbaric construction we must probably first change bhāryāyā to bhāryayā. But the wife of a patita is not bhartrā susamavetā. I would therefore put bhāryayābhartrā : “The son of a man expelled from his caste (being) by his wife, who had equipped herself probably with another man not her husband.” But since bhartar here, like pati and dārās in the above-quoted verses, perhaps simply means a proxy-husband, one would get with bhartrā, too, essentially the same meaning : “who had probably provided herself with a (proxy-)husband.” The patita is an outlaw, a dead man ; and just as the younger brother of such a one may marry before him without fear, so the wife of the expelled man may unite sexually with another man, and the child is then looked on as her actual husband’s (probably if he is then rehabilitated ; cp. K, xiii, 84.6).