Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c7.51

v1.c7.51

This, the most important part of the woman's life, makes its appearance with the ṛitu; with the ṛitu begins, with it it ends, in it it has always its central point. Ṛitu denotes the monthly cleansing, and then in particular those days after the period, from the fourth day onwards,¹ which in the Indian view are proper for conception. In what follows I shall use the Sanskrit word only in the second and narrower meaning. The setting in of the menses brings with it not only the capacity for the full sexual life, and the right thereto, but first and foremost the divine call to it, the unavoidable duty. A menstruating girl in a father's house is a heavy sin for him; the daughter is now dedicated to the divinities of married state. The legal provision, therefore, already touched upon often makes its appearance, namely that the father shall marry his daughter off before the beginning of this time, and then, so soon as she is sexually ripe, the husband fetches her home.² As already mentioned, child marriage has no place in the narrative parts of the Epic.¹ The heroines of the main story and of the inserted episodes are already grown up on their marriage, just like the love heroines of the ordinary Indian narrative literature (cp. Leumann, *Die Nonne*, strophe 122 ff.; Meyer, Kauṭilya, addit., 246.14). But the Epic also stresses the point that that time, the ṛitu, must not slip by without being made use of. For the woman is there that she may bring forth, and her calling must not be barred to her or made harder. Therefore, during each ṛitu not only has she the urge to coition, but for her this is then also a holy right and command.