Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c9.197

c9.197

The above mentioned examples show that marriage between people of higher varṇas and śūdra women was not discountenanced.⁵ Probably in the beginning the Vedic Indians and the aborigines married within their respective tribes.⁶ Even when tribes disintegrated, and their members were divided among the four varṇas, the old practice may have continued for a time. But already during the later Vedic period varṇa distinctions had become so strong as not to permit marriage between the male members of the lower classes and the females of higher classes. There had begun also the tendency to look upon the śūdra woman as an object of pleasure for men of the higher varṇas. Thus in a comparatively later Brāhmaṇa the *anuṣṭubh* metre is compared to a śūdra harlot fit for being approached.¹