The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c14.88

c14.88

The state should see that husband and wife, father and son, brother and sister, uncle and nephew, teacher and pupil are faithful to one another and do not play each other false. The state itself should provide support to poor, pregnant women, to their new-born offspring, to orphans, to the aged, the infirm, the afflicted and the helpless.¹ He lays down when men may use witchcraft to gain the affections of their wives or sweethearts and when, for instance, in cases of perversion for incestuous purposes, it was to be punished with mutilation or death.² He prescribes the conditions of divorce, separation, second or subsequent marriages, ways of teaching manners to refractory women.³ Detailed and minute are his provisions for safeguarding the honour of women, the safety of immature girls, relations of lovers, etc.⁴ His law of adultery, proceeds on lines of caste.⁵ Coming to elopement, he would legislate on every step, on every possibility, in that complicated affair.⁶ He classifies prostitutes, places them under a state superintendent, prescribes their fees, checks their tendency to extravagance, limits their expenditure, lays down their conduct in detail towards their paramours, provides for their safety and does not fail to decree that one-fifteenth of their income should go to the state.⁷