Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c11.101.2

v2.c11.101.2

Thus with marriage—but not with sexual intercourse outside marriage—the man is threatened by the sharpest malice of magical powers. But the demons are very stupid. So they only watch the door (*Jāt.*, ii, 79, introduct.; Dubois-Beauchamp ³, p. 499; *Zeitschr. d. Ver. f. Volksk.*, 11, p. 268; *Zeitschr. f Ethnol.*, Bd. 30, p. 353; Ploss-Bartels, i, 560), believe that if the child has an ugly name, or is spoken of slightingly, then nothing will happen, and so on. If then the newly wedded refrain at the beginning, these simple fools of spirits imagine that it will go on in this way. Among many peoples and tribes a short time only of chastity is enough to trick the evil powers, among others due trouble must be taken. Thus it is that those, too, who have not been long married come together by stealth, or in the forest, in the open, for the spirits only watch the house and what goes on in it, especially in such a case as this. In other places, indeed, the young married couple must for a long time keep themselves carefully shut in, particularly by night, but this, too, is only because of the spirits who are then so powerful. See, for example, Weber’s *Ind. Studien*, v, 331, 347; Garnett, i, 241-2, 324; ii, 257; Mantegazza, 256; McLennan, 181, 186-7; Westermarck, 151-2; *Anthropos*, iii, 185.