Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c19.32

v2.c19.32

As so often in the Indian writings, the loss, by a wife, of her standing to a new rival shows itself as one of the greatest sorrows on this earth already so full of sorrows. “ The sorrow of him that loses his all, and of him whose son is slain ; the sorrow of the wife that is robbed of her husband, and of him whom the king has laid hold of ; the sorrow of the childless woman, and of him that already feels the tiger’s breath on him¹; the sorrow of the wife when her husband takes another besides, and of him that is convicted by witnesses—these sorrows are alike ” (ii, 68.81 ff.). So also in v, 35.31, 32, among those who spend dreadful nights is found the adhivinnā strī, the wife who is put in the background through a new wife being taken (This çloka is = Nārada, i, 203. Cp. Meyer, *Altind. Rechts-schriften*, 109-11 ; Kautilya, index under “Überheiratung”). No wonder if she then often left her husband’s house in anger, as we may conclude from Manu, ix, 83.²