Chandragupta Maurya and His Times c12.s1.93

c12.s1.93

Again, the period of absence of her husband, however prolonged, is no excuse for the wife to choose a second husband [IX, 76, 78; Yājñavalkya, I, 89]. While Yājñavalkya considers it to be a crime on the part of man not to remarry after his first wife is dead [I. 89), he would not allow a woman to remarry under similar circumstances. This means further that a widow could not find relatives to associate themselves with the impious undertaking of giving her away for her second marriage, and, if she remarried by herself, she would be branded as a *svairiṇī* [I, 63, 64, 67]. The ideal laid down for a wife was even her self-immolation as a *satī* [I, 86].