As has often been pointed out (see, e.g., Olivelle’s introduction to MDh , pp. 11–12 and cf. MDh 3.77–3.79, 6.89–6.90), the (Brahmin) householder (gṛhastha ) is the lynchpin of the dharma system, the unmarked subject of most of the multiple provisions in the Dharma-sūtras and -śāstras, and the economic support of the society envisioned there. In the codified āśrama system, the householder occupies the second stage—after studentship (brahmacarya ), but before the retiring to the forest (vānaprastha ) and ultimate adoption of renunciant asceticism (saṃnyāsa ). In order to enter the householder’s state, a man must marry, allowing him to establish a household and produce the progeny so necessary for the extension of his family line, both economically and ritually. Consequently, who to marry and how to marry are major preoccupations of the Dharma-sūtras and -śāstras, as well as of the manuals of domestic practice (Gṛhyasūtras).
The ritual necessity for marriage long predates the dharma texts proper. Starting in the late Rig Veda, in order to perform the solemn (śrauta ) rituals prescribed (or allowed) for the twice-born elite, the performer must not only be married, but his wife (patnī ) must be present at the rituals and undertake certain actions either in concert with him or independent of him. 1 The married couple establishes their ritual fire jointly, and this ritual partnership gives the man his status as a sacrificer. Their domestic partnership is also emphasized in these early Vedic texts (esp. the wedding hymns, ṚV 10.85, AV 14.1–2), though it is a partnership always mediated by their jointly established fire, the fire that defines their ritual life.
Curiously enough, however, the word gṛhastha , the standard term for the householder in the dharma texts and later, is entirely absent from the earlier texts, where, when the role is named at all, the word is gṛhapati- “houselord.” The term gṛhastha only begins to appear in the dharma texts and from then on is the standard term of art, while gṛhapati never appears in the dharma texts. This terminological demarcation hints at a conceptual discontinuity as well, and the linguistic history of the term gṛhastha illuminates the conceptual renewal. 2 Forms of this word are found beginning in the Aśokan inscriptions of the third c. bce in various Middle Indo-Aryan forms (gahatha- , etc.); the Sanskrit word gṛhastha- significantly postdates these occurrences. In the Middle Indic texts the “householder” word is regularly paired with a word whose Sanskrit form would be pravrajita “gone forth,” a technical term for a wandering ascetic of a heterodox (Buddhist, Jain, etc.) sect. The gṛhastha word appears three times in the Aśokan inscriptions, twice (RE 12A, 7th Pillar Edict) paired with pravrajita , once (RE 13G) beside the pair brāhmaṇa /śramaṇa and itself explicitly paired with pāṣanda “member of a heterodox sect.” Such contrastive pairings are found in the other early Middle Indic languages: in Gāndhārī Prākrit the Niya document 489 contains two occurrences of the word, one contrasting with bhikkhu “monk,” the other with *śramaṇa . Pāli and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit also attest the pairing with pravrajita- .
The gṛha-stha , literally “stay-at-home,” is thus defined against a contrastive role, that of an ascetic of no fixed abode and no domestic entanglements, a role well recognized in heterodox circles, but not available in Brahmanical orthodoxy save as a later, post-retirement life stage. This contrastive pairing implies that the householder of the dharma texts was not simply a married man and pater familias in what we might, anachronistically, consider an essentially secular role, but a man with a religious life equivalent to that of a wandering ascetic, but a religious life pursued and fulfilled within the context of a sedentary family existence. To infuse the householder’s busy and distracting daily life with the same religious gravity as that of an ascetic focused entirely on his own spiritual practice, some conceptual adjustments had to be made. In addition to the institutionalization of the “five great sacrifices” (mahāyajña s) required of the householder every day, the dharma texts exhibit what I have elsewhere termed “the sacralization of the everyday,” the extraordinary nimbus of ritualized behavior that envelops every petty act of daily life—eating, excreting, dressing, sleeping, having sex, and so on—by consciously employing the verbal and physical behaviors characteristic of ritual. By infusing the ordinary actions necessary to daily life and generally undertaken without thought with the glamor and meaningful deliberateness of ritual activity, the new conceptual system ennobles the life of a householder and makes him a worthy counterweight to the wandering ascetic.
Thus the implication of this linguistic evidence is that the householder of the dharma texts was not simply the continuator of the Vedic married ritualist but also had been re-defined in the context of a pluralistic religious environment where marriage and family were not the only choices for a young man in his prime. This dialectic may have caused special emphasis to be laid on the centrality of the householder in Brahmanical circles.
Although some attention is paid to desirable qualities in a bridegroom (see Kane II: 430–1), since the texts are written from the male point of view, much more space is given to what should be sought in a bride. In addition to qualities such as good family, good character, beauty, and a body without physical defects, even such characteristics as her given name are subject to scrutiny—e.g., according to some texts, no name whose next to last letter is r or l . (If this was a widespread criterion, one might think that parents would learn to avoid such naming practices.) For a collection of many of the qualities mentioned in various texts, see Kane II: 431–5. Needless to say, there are also rules about class and degree of relationship between bride and groom. Though the ideal (first) marriage should be between people of the same varṇa, in addition, a man may marry women from lower varṇas than his own (cf., e.g., MDh 3.12–3.13, 43–4; 9.85–9.87; PārGṛ 1.4.8–1.4.11), the so-called anuloma (“with the hair,” that is, in a natural direction) marriage. There are also severe (and ever-increasing) restrictions on intermarriage between members of smaller circles within these larger groups: marriages with sagotra, sapravara , and sapiṇḍa females are forbidden up to a certain degree. The fantastic complications of these calculations, especially as time went on, can be tasted in Kane’s treatment (II: 452–501, complete with charts).
Sanskrit literature of course contains one exceptionally famous example of polyandry: Draupadī’s marriage to the five Pāṇḍava brothers in the Mahābhārata . But there is no evidence in the normative texts that this was anything but a stunning narrative device, whatever its source, not a reflection of practice. There is better evidence for polygamy, starting with the two charms against cowives in the Ṛg Veda (10.145, 159) spoken in the first person by an exultant woman, as well as incidental references to cowives in that and other early Vedic texts. We encounter the two wives of the sage Yājñavalkya in the narratives of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad , and the Kāma Sūtra (4.2) has characteristically cunning suggestions for how a cowife should treat her fellow wives to achieve maximum advantage over them. The dharma texts themselves are somewhat reticent on the subject in their treatments of marriage, however, except with regard to supersession of a wife for cause, on which see below. See also the permissibility of anuloma marriages mentioned above.
One figure who is expected to have multiple wives is the king, to whose wives different ritual roles are allotted in the great royal ritual, the Horse Sacrifice (aśvamedha ), with the chief queen (mahiṣī ) copulating with the dead horse, while two or three other wives (the vāvātā “favorite” and the parivṛktī “avoided wife,” sometimes along with the lower-class pālāgalī ) perform less crucial tasks on the sidelines. Only the mahiṣī counts as the king’s ritual partner (unluckily for her, at least in the Horse Sacrifice).
The normative texts generally assume that a man will marry on finishing his studentship and taking the final bath. Though there was no fixed age for this “graduation,” it seems likely that he would usually be in his late teens or early twenties, allowing for upanayana around eight and a decade or more of Vedic study. The age of marriage for the bride is a more fraught question: in popular and semi-popular (Western) literature, India is notorious for very young child brides (prepuberty). (See the Internet for numerous sites relating to this issue.) Without entering into whether this perception is accurate for medieval or early modern India, or is accurate today, we can say that at the time of the Dharma-sūtras and -śāstras, it seems not to have been the case, though the circumstances that might lead to it are already in place.
According to the Dharmasūtras and the MDh , a father should arrange a marriage for his daughter very close to menarche (first menstruation), generally within three months to three years after it, depending on the text. 3 For every subsequent menstrual period after the deadline, the father is guilty of bhrūṇahatya (embryo-murder = abortion). Although this timetable puts the girl safely past puberty (though not necessarily by much), one can imagine the anxiety that the anticipation might cause the father (/parents) as puberty neared, esp. since the exact age of menarche cannot be predicted. Therefore, prudent parents might be forgiven for trying to make arrangements well in advance, by identifying a suitable bridegroom and contracting for a marriage before the need arose. This could, and ultimately did, lead to enacting a formal marriage even of very young girls, while postponing the consummation, in order to “lock in” the deal before the groom got snatched up by some other anxious father. Nonetheless, there is no evidence in the earlier texts that marriages were held significantly before puberty. Though already in VaDh (17.70) it is suggested that “because of fear of the onset of menstruation” (ṛtukālabhayāt ), the father should give his daughter in marriage while still “naked” (nagnikā ), this much-discussed term, found also elsewhere in the Gṛhya- and Dharma-sūtras, has been convincingly explained by Thieme (1963 : 170–80 [= 1984 : 435–45]) as referring not to a girl too young to wear clothes (as it has sometimes been interpreted), but rather to one still naked of pubic hair, a situation that obtains until just before puberty. As Kane also points out (II: 441), the usual treatments of the marriage ceremony prescribe that first intercourse take place soon after the arrival at the groom’s home, a journey undertaken immediately after the ceremony proper. The event can be postponed for a few days, or at most a year, but if the bride were truly a child, this speedy consummation “would have been uncalled for and extremely inappropriate,” in Kane’s words.
Based on these assumptions, the age gap between bridge and groom would not have been substantial, though MDh in one place (9.94) suggests a larger one: a groom of thirty and a girl of twelve, or a groom of eighteen and a bride of eight.
As is well known, the normative texts, particularly dharma texts, but also some Gṛhyasūtras, classify marriage into eight different types, hierarchically arranged: 4
The last three types are, to our modern sensibilities, the most interesting and the least “marriage”-like. The Gāndharva marriage is marriage by mutual agreement, driven by lust, with no parental involvement. Probably the most famous Gāndharva marriage in Sanskrit literature is that of Śakuntalā to King Duṣyanta, recounted in both the Mahābhārata and Kalidāsa’s eponymous play, and one might take it as a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of Gāndharva marriage, since the marriage is later denied by the king, and it takes much effort on the part of Śakuntalā (and various divine helpers) to ensure the legitimacy of her son by Duṣyanta.
Rākṣasa marriage is marriage by abduction and requires, legally, that the abductor fight off the protectors of the abductee with maximum violence, while at the same time mimicking the ceremonial steps in a more tranquil wedding. 5 Bhīṣma’s abduction of three maidens on behalf of his brother Vicitravīrya in the Mahābhārata is a text-book example of Rākṣasa abduction; again it does not turn out entirely well, since one of the girls, Ambā, deprived of her expected fiancée by this maneuver, has her life ruined, curses Bhīṣma, and is ultimately reborn as Śikhandin to cause Bhīṣma’s death.
Paiśāca marriage is defined as secret congress with a girl who is “asleep, intoxicated, or deranged” (suptāṃ mattāṃ pramattām ; MDh 3.34), finding a peculiar resonance with the current ongoing bitter battles about what constitutes sexual consent and how to prove it. Tantamount to rape, this type of marriage is universally condemned (or ignored). Insofar as it was a marriage type at all, it presumably cast a legitimizing veil over any child produced through such an act. Its presence on the list of marriage types should not be taken as evidence that such brutality met with moral and legal approval.
Gāndharva and Rākṣasa marriages, by contrast, do receive at least qualified approval—for a particular social group. A number of texts state that they are legal for Kṣatriyas (for details, see Jamison 1996a : 296 n. 10). There is a clear reason for this. The first four 6 marriage types involve gift—the “gift of a maiden” (kanyādāna )—and Kṣatriyas are not supposed to accept gifts. As a bridegroom, accepting this gift from his father-in-law, a Kṣatriya would find himself in an awkward and potentially humiliating position. Better to either just snatch the girl (Rākṣasa) or come to an agreement with her without external interference (Gāndharva). The case is very different for a Brahmin, one of whose duties is in fact to accept gifts (see Chapter 15 in this volume). It is no surprise then that at least the first four marriage types are generally pronounced legal for Brahmins.
The gift-marriages are more difficult to distinguish from each other than are those lower down on the list, esp. the first four. The fifth, Āsura marriage, is defined by Manu (3.31) as the giving of a girl to a man who has in turn provided wealth to her relatives and to her. Although for Manu (though not most other dharma texts) it falls in the larger category of gift-marriages, it seems equivalent to a sale, and this must account for the disapproval of it in a number of texts, including MDh (3.24–25), and the general discomfort expressed about bride-price—even though narrative literature gives us numerous instances of bride-price in practice (Jamison 1996a : 213–15).
This leaves the first four types, the gift-marriages, which differ from each other in degree and emphasis. Attempting to distinguish them more narrowly here would take us too far afield; for some discussion see Jamison 1996a : 215–18 and Kane II: 516–20.
One type of marriage that has great prominence in Sanskrit literature is omitted from the lists in the dharma and gṛhya literature, namely the svayaṃvara or “self-choice,” whereby the prospective bride herself makes the choice of husband. Many people first encounter this form of marriage in the Mahābhārata story of Nala and Damayantī, 7 and Draupadī’s marriage in the same text is also set up as a self-choice (though with a number of extra complications, including a pitched battle and four more bridegrooms than she expected). The standard narrative form of the svayaṃvara seems limited to the daughters of kings. The father of the girl, the king, invites a crowd of appropriate suitors, entertains them and their retinues expensively, and then brings his daughter to display her to the host and allow her to make the choice. The difference between Damayantī’s and Draupadī’s svayaṃvaras illustrates the two major types, identified and illuminatingly discussed by Schmidt (1987: Chapter 3 ). In one the girl is given a truly free choice among the assembled men—thus Damayantī’s and the svayaṃvara of Indumatī in Kalidāsa’s Raghuvaṃśa . In the other the suitors compete with each other to perform a set feat; this is known as the vīrya-śulka type (“having a manly deed as bride-price”). The girl duly “chooses” the man who succeeds in accomplishing it; there is no actual choice involved. Draupadī’s svayaṃvara was of this type, and Rāma wins Sītā in a displaced version of this type.
There is good evidence for the svayaṃvara already in the Rig Veda (see Jamison 2001 , 2003 ), and indeed it seems to have been an inherited Indo-European institution, judging from the striking similarity between svayaṃvaras depicted in Sanskrit literature and the interaction of Penelope and the suitors in the Odyssey (see Jamison 1999 ).
This type of elaborate royal self-choice is not found in the normative literature, but a different type of self-choice is envisioned there. As noted above, a girl’s father has a responsibility to find her a husband within a limited time after menarche. A certain period after that, generally set as three years, the girl can, as it were, emancipate herself from her family, returning all ornaments she has received from them, and seek her own husband. This sounds like a fraught affair, far from the pomp and protection of a father-arranged self-choice held at the girl’s own home. The most famous literary example of this is Sāvitrī in the Mahābhārata , who embarks on a journey to find herself a mate (and then chooses one fated to die in a year). (For a discussion of this type of self-choice see Jamison 1996a : 237–47 and Kane II: 523).
The standard Sanskrit term for marriage is vivāha , literally “carrying off.” Although this might sound like a relic from a period in which the Rākṣasa or “abduction” marriage was the standard form (a period that I am not suggesting ever existed), in fact it refers to one of the most important steps in the standard wedding ceremony, namely the journey, after the wedding proper, to the bridegroom’s home, a journey that receives outsize treatment in all descriptions of the wedding. Marriage was patrilocal, and the separation of the bride from her natal place and family was symbolically very important and ritually enacted.
The various treatments of the marriage ceremony differ widely from each other in detail, in the number, content, and order of the many subrites, and this is not the place to provide a full survey (see a fairly detailed account in Kane II: 531–41). The most crucial and generally shared features will instead be touched on. The proceedings are inaugurated by the “wooing,” when relatives and/or supporters of the bridegroom visit the bride’s father/family to ask for the girl’s hand and arrange the details. The wedding ceremony proper contains a number of ritual procedures, but the most important are probably the giving of the maiden (kanyādāna ) to the groom by her father (or in his absence another close relative 8 ), the groom’s grasping the bride’s hand (pāṇigrahaṇa ), his leading his bride around the fire (agnipariṇayana )—one of the words for wife is pariṇītā “led around”—and the seven steps (saptapadī ), whereby the bride and groom walk seven steps northeast of the fire. It is only after the seven steps that the marriage becomes irrevocable (cf. MDh 8.27 and Kane II: 539).
The ceremony at the home of the bride’s family is followed by the journey to the groom’s home, the vivāha proper. As mentioned above, this journey is elaborately treated in most texts that deal with the wedding, and it is depicted as exceptionally perilous. As I have argued (Jamison 1996a : 224–6), the journey is accorded such importance because it represents the first time the groom really has charge of the bride: as soon as she mounts his chariot, even while still at her own home, she has entered a small piece of his property and into the zone of his control. It is striking that the wedding hymn in the Ṛg Veda (10.85), as well as the version of it found in the Atharva Veda (14.1, 2, extended with many additional verses), lacks many of the elements of the ceremony as described in the Gṛhyasūtras 9 but has multiple verses devoted to the wedding vehicle and the wedding journey.
After the arrival at their new home, the groom points out the pole star and the star Arundhatī to the bride. After three nights of lying chastely together, they are supposed to consummate the marriage on the fourth.
Since the most approved forms of marriage involve the gift of the girl by her father to her husband and since one of the most pervasive doctrines about women is their asvātantryam (“lack of independence”; see strīdharma chapter in this volume), taking these facts to their logical extreme would lead to the assumption that the husband not only had control over his wife but “owned” her. This is an uncomfortable conclusion to reach, and in fact, in the place where it arises most dramatically, it is definitively sidestepped. This is in the Mahābhārata dicing match where Yudhiṣṭhira gambles away his brothers, himself, and Draupadī. The question might arise: did he have the right to stake her like property? But, as it turns out, this question is short-circuited, because Draupadī herself recognizes that he had staked and lost himself before he staked her and, therefore, as one who had lost his own independence, he had no property rights over her. The question keeps arising however, until Dhṛtarāṣṭra simply annuls the results of the first match. (For discussion, see Jamison 1996a : 236–7, and see Kane II: 508 on later dharma writers who discuss this question.)
The two most important duties of the married couple are to perform sacrifices jointly (see Section 9.1) and to procreate, producing the sons that will carry on the family line and provide the necessary ritual service to the ancestors (pitars ). This second duty requires that the husband regularly have sex with his wife during her fertile period. The husband is also tasked with “guarding” his wife (for which see the chapter on strīdharma ), in great part, to ensure he is the father of her children. Her major duty is strict obedience to her husband; in the meantime, she is also charged with running the household expeditiously and with economy.
Before treating how established marriages can end, it is worth noting that an agreement to marry can be rescinded if the goods are not as advertised, as it were. That is, if the father attempts to marry off a girl with physical or mental defects without disclosing the defects, the potential husband can annul the agreement, “even if he has accepted her according to law” (vidhivat pratigṛhyāpi ), and the father can be fined (MDh 9.72–9.73, 8.224), but if he did disclose her flaws, the father is not liable to punishment (MDh 8.205). The text does not make clear whether the husband can repudiate such a wife after the seven steps, but it seems unlikely. The Ṛg Veda contains the first instance of this provision, in a characteristically enigmatic verse (ṚV 10.27.11; see Jamison 1996b ). On the other hand, a suitor who repudiates an unflawed maiden or who falsely claims she is flawed is likewise to be punished, according to some texts (e.g., YDh 1.66).
Divorce per se does not appear to exist; the marital bond is supposed to continue until the death of one of the spouses (see, e.g., MDh 9.101). However, various makeshifts accommodate less than ideal marital situations, 10 and the Arthaśāstra , in particular is more pragmatic about how to handle such situations than the dharma texts. According to Manu, a man has the right to supersede his wife on various grounds—on the one hand, because of vicious character and habits (e.g., drunkenness, verbal abuse), which allow almost immediate supersession, and, on the other, because she produces no children or unsatisfactory ones, for which a period of years must elapse before supersession (cf., e.g., MDh 9.77–9.84). At least a woman in the latter category still deserve material support, though her husband has married a new wife. For further on supersession and compensation for it, see AŚ 3.2.38–3.2.42.
As for women who have been left behind by their husbands, there do exist legal remedies. After a waiting period of some years (whose length is determined by various factors such as the reason for the journey and the social class of the husband), the woman is released and some texts imply or require that she can take another husband. (For details, see Jamison 1999 : 232–8.) All of these provisions for women assume that the husband is on a journey from which he fails to return; what a woman should do with a present but unsatisfactory husband is less clear. MDh 9.78–9.79 is somewhat incoherent on the subject; in the first provision a woman who “transgresses against” (atikrāmet ) a husband with various nasty habits or conditions is nonetheless the one to be cast out (though for a short period), while according to the second if she hates (dviṣāṇa- ) one whose qualities do not seem that much worse she is still entitled to support. MDh 5.154 is blunter on this matter: even a thoroughly worthless husband (“devoid of good qualities” guṇaiḥ…parivarjitaḥ ) is to be worshiped like a god by a good wife. It seems that the best she can hope for is that he will go on a journey and not come back. Kauṭilya, on the other hand, does allow a wife to abandon such a husband (AŚ 3.2.48) and it recognizes divorce because of mutual hatred, though only for marriages not contracted by the first four forms (AŚ 3.3.15–3.3.19).
The popular imagination about premodern India has it that all widows immolated themselves on their husbands’ funeral pyres, committing suttee (in the Anglo-Indian spelling, i.e., satī ). 11 Although this is presented as an option already in the epic (where, e.g., in the Mahābhārata Mādrī, the second wife of Pāṇḍu, joined him on his funeral pyre), there is no Vedic evidence for it, though the practice may in part have arisen from misunderstanding of the Ṛg-Vedic funeral verses 10.18.7–10.18.9, where the widow is first shown lying down beside her dead husband and then being summoned back to life. (For discussion of satī , especially in the later dharma literature, see Brick 2010 ).
Judging both from narrative literature and the normative texts, most widows remained alive but were subject to severe constraints on behavior, including restrictions on food and anything that remotely resembled frivolity (see Kane II: 583–7 for some details). Nonetheless, narrative models like Kuntī, Pāṇḍu’s other wife, show widows respected by their families and taking an active part in the family’s affairs.
The most controversial issue about widowhood is the practice of niyoga or levirate. When a man dies without a son, some texts allow the widow to have a son by her husband’s brother. But even texts that allow this practice display great ambivalence about it and attempt to constrain it as much as possible, by limiting the number of times intercourse can occur and by attempting to strip it of any potential sexual pleasure (see Kane II: 598–603). The institution of niyoga is already clearly present in the Ṛg Veda , in a verse (10.40.2) in a simile that describes a widow taking to bed her brother-in-law (vidháveva deváram ). (For further discussion of niyoga in comparative perspective, see Schmidt 1987 : 64–75.)
Remarriage of widows is also generally disapproved of, but the fairly frequent mentions of remarried women suggest that the practice was more widespread than the normative texts would like. As was noted above, wives whose husbands fail to return from a journey are allowed or expected to marry again. Kauṭilya also treats remarriage after the husband’s death under the topic of women’s property (AŚ 3.2.19–3.2.32) and long absence from home (AŚ 3.4.37–3.4.42).
While much attention (however negative) is paid to widows, widowers are almost invisible. What is clear is that the ritual partnership created by the marriage is dissolved on the death of the wife. The widower cremates his dead wife along with the sacrificial equipment, but he is then urged to remarry and to establish a new ritual partnership. He cannot simply continue to sacrifice on his own. (See MDh 5.167–5.168 and Jamison 1996a : 35, 37.)