Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c7.518

c7.518

Sharma's acceptance of the *vidatha* as a "family council" in certain contexts, and his comparison of it with the "democratic assembly" of the Iroquois gens show that the analogy is not accurate. The family council consists of the members, male and female, of one family—grandparents, their sons and daughters-in-law and their grandsons and grand-daughters-in-law—, whereas gens are formed of a number of such families. Therefore, Sharma's comparison of the *vidatha* "family council" with the "democratic assembly" of the Iroquois gens is also erroneous. Moreover, even if he means a gens-council by the term "family council", we have no evidence to show that the women attended such councils in Vedic times. In both cases the analogy is false.