Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v2.c4.s9.1130

v2.c4.s9.1130

Of the exact legal position of daughters the notices are few and meagre. The Rigveda,⁷ however, shows that in the place of a father the brother was looked to for aid, and that brother-less maidens were apt to be ruined, though religious terrors were believed to await the man who took advantage of their defencelessness.⁸ Moreover, women could not take an inheritance,⁹ and were not independent persons in the eyes of the law, whether married or not. Presumably before marriage they lived on their parents or brothers, and after that on their husbands, while in the event of their husbands predeceasing them, their relatives took the property, burdened with the necessity of maintaining the wife.¹⁰ Their earnings would be appropriated by their nearest relative—usually father or brother—in the few cases in which unmarried women could earn anything, as in the case of courtezans.