Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c16.1

v2.c16.1

DREARY, on the other hand, is the lot of the widow in the Epic. First and foremost the husband is the food-giver to the wife (the bhartar of the bhāryā). True, we read in xiii, 167.2 of Yudhiṣṭhira after the great fight: "Then did Pāṇḍu's son, the king, console with rich gifts the women whose hero-husbands, their lords, had been slain"; and in ii, 5.54 it is laid down as the ruler's duty that he shall maintain the wives of the men that have lost their lives or come to misfortune in his service.¹ But even if the ruler should have been true, oftener than may be presumed, to this virtue of the father of the land, it would have been only a relatively small part of the existing widows that were helped by such a prescript, and a grant or pension of this kind. Even where the husband was wealthy he could not at his death leave much to his wife as her personal property. "Three thousand is the most that a man can give his wife in money; and this property given her by her husband she shall enjoy, as is fitting. According to the tradition the woman has the usufruct of the property left behind by her husband. In no wise shall anything of the husband's property be taken away from her" (xiii, 47.23 ff.).² This last ordinance would indeed be a very friendly one, but, of course, can only be meant to hold if there are no sons.³ But man, and