Top 3 Facts You Never Knew About Marriage Under Ancient Hindu Law
Dating back to the period of the Rig Veda, marriage has been revered as a 'samskara' or sacrament. Eight different forms of marriage were recognized in Hindu law at that time but only four were considered as approved forms of marriage.
The following are the top facts you never knew before about marriage under ancient Hindu law
Bramha Marriage is Ideal
The 'Brahmha' form of marriage was considered the ideal form of Hindu marriage. Simply put, it meant that the girl is considered as a gift that is pure and simple, whereas in other forms of marriage, consideration was accepted by the father or a guardian for giving the girl away in marriage. What this indicates is that accepting dowry of any kind was totally alien to Hindu law.
Polygamy is Permitted
Monogamy was the accepted rule but polygamy was an exceptional one. Taking more than one wife required sufficient legal justification. A huge drawback of Hindu law of that era was that a Hindu could marry a second time even if he had a wife living at the same time.
Divorce is not Acceptable
Strictly, Hindu law did not acccept divorce at all. Narada's celebrated text, Naradsmriti, permits a woman to marry a second time only when any of the five calamities occur to her husband, namely:
- he is missing
- he is dead
- he has retired from the world
- he is impotent
- he is degraded
Two of our readers, Praveen Chauhan and Aruna Binu, Take on Different Perspectives.
According to Praveen Chauhan, he does not agree with the point that a Hindu could marry a second time even if he had a wife living at the same time.
Aruna Binu points out that according to ancient Hindu laws, a man could take many wives, provided he had the means to support them but provide for them but this was done only by kings and such people. She also points out that there are cases of polyandry too, where women took mutiple husbands. This proves that the Hindu scriptures did not discriminate between man and woman because they implied that whatever man did, the woman could do too. She states that the problem set in when people got out of touch with the scriptures and fell prey to "upper caste" and "foreign" spin theories and slowly women began to be stripped of their rights. Also, a pertinent fact is that foreign entities ruled the ancient Indian society for a long time.
As a reader I was curious about wat other seven type of marriage forms in Hindu religion.. Pls enlist them as well.
there are various smritis such as manu smriti, ygnavalkya smiriti, apastamba sutra and all. this smritis differ from each other and have evolved at different times. it is wrong to say brahma marriage is giving the bride as gift but it is just giving the bride as a "wife". there are different kinds of marriages recognised including giving your daughter for money, getting a son-in-law for money, love/secret marriage, forcefully marrying a girl etc.
they reflect thier times. but as books and laws are meant to be broken lot of unsaid thing also becomes customs and thier validity is questionable. The prevalance of these customs also may not be what we tend to think/belive.
Thanks for the query, Praveen. The Rig Veda is not the only source of Hindu law. Customs are also a valid source. To legalize a custom as valid, there are some conditions but as a result, ancient Hindu law had many repressive customs that were adopted as unspoken laws.
As many customs became dominant and unmonitored by any religious body, social evils of today became valid customs in ancient Hindu law. Out-of-the box religious leaders such as Swami Vivekananda questioned the validity and relevance of customs such as practising untouchability and casteism, prevalence of child marriage, ban on widow remarriage and adoption of sati as a noble custom. These are some examples of validated ancient Hindu law customs.
Another example is that of a Hindu man being able to have more than one wife while the first wife is alive.
May I know from where you get this information that "A huge drawback of Hindu law of that era was that a Hindu could marry a second time even if he had a wife living at the same time".
Is it in Rig Veda that a Hindu could marry a second time even if he had a wife??
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