Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s21.308

v1.c3.s21.308

But the main object of a woman’s marriage was the production of children, this being repeatedly asserted in the Rigveda and later.¹²³ The desire for offspring, as was natural in a society which mainly counted relationship through the father, took the form of a wish for a son to perform the necessary funeral rites for the father, and to continue his line. It was no doubt possible to adopt a son, but in the Rigveda¹²⁴ this custom is plainly viewed as unsatisfactory. The practice is recognized,¹²⁵ as we have seen above of Niyoga, in the appointment of a brother to beget children with the wife of a dead man, or perhaps of a man who is childless. ‘Sonlessness’ (*avīratā*) is placed on the same level as lack of property (*amati*), and Agni is besought to protect from it.¹²⁶ The birth of a daughter was certainly not specially welcome: the Atharvaveda¹²⁷ in one hymn distinctly invokes the birth of a son, and deprecates that of a daughter, while the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa¹²⁸ contains an old verse which says that a daughter is a misery (*kṛpaṇam*), while a son is a light in the highest heaven (*jyotir ha putraḥ parame vyoman*). But there is no proof that the Vedic Indians practised the exposure of female children. This conclusion, deduced from certain passages in the later Saṃhitās¹²⁹ by Zimmer¹³⁰ and Delbrück,¹³¹ has been disproved by Böhtlingk.