Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c16.9

v2.c16.9

Nārada, xii, 8–19 insists on the same thing, and gives highly interesting marks of the man fit for love’s duties, and a still more interesting catalogue of impotent men together with methods for cure in the curable cases (among them the mukhebhaga, and the man that has his powers with other women, but not with his own wife). Cp. Kauṭilya, 305.11 f.; addit., 305.30; 296.16–297.4; addit., 296.47; Agnipur., 227.15b–16a. Nārada, xii, 61 also lays down: If a man lies with the willing wife of a man that has left his spotless (chaṣte, aduṣṭā) wife, or is impotent or consumptive, then that does not constitute adultery. If this passage is taken together with the others in this law work, then according to it it would seem that at least the forsaken wife may marry again. The right to her has evidently been lost altogether by the husband. According to Viṣṇu, v, 163 the man who leaves his wife (patnīm parityajan) shall be punished like a thief. However, nirdoṣam is probably to be supplemented from the preceding Sūtra; thus: “if she is free of worse failings and unchastity.” Āpast., i, 10, 28.19, makes the demand: He who unjustifiably forsakes his wife shall put on an ass’s skin with the hair outwards, and beg in seven houses with the words “Give alms to one that has left his wife”. Thus must he support himself six months long. Cp. Manu, viii, 389. Among the Ghasias in the United Provinces, where as among many other tribes the girl makes the marriage proposal, the wife can leave the husband and of course marry another, if he becomes mad, impotent, blind, or a leper, or if he has to do with other women; while the husband has not the same right against the adulteress. Hartland, *Prim. Paternity*, ii, 40 (on like and still greater privileges of the woman, and the prejudiced position of the man particularly in his relations with the other sex cp. ii, 67, 106, 124–128; 154 f., also 72 ff., and especially 78–82; further ii, 5–7, and in reference to this Welhausen, *Gött. Nachrr.*, 1913, p. 465 ff.). Cp. also W. I. Thomas, *Sex and Society* (1907), p. 73 f.; 79. If the husband has been missing for nine years, the wife in Montenegro (Crnagora) may wed again (Krauss, *Sitte u. Brauch d. Südslawen*, 229 f.). And so for other cases.