DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16243#0216
i82 PEOPLE OF INDIA
^.V^ marriage of a widow, and the convention enjoining the mar-
riage of a daughter before she attains physical
Widow and infant . .. T r ii i • i i.^^
marriage. maturity. In the case 01 the higher castes
both of these usages may claim a respectable
antiquity. In the lower strata of society, on the other hand,
they appear to have been developed, in the form which they
now assume, at a comparatively recent date under the pressure
of peculiar social conditions. Both, again, are looked upon by
the people who observe them as badges of social distinction,
and to the fact that they are regarded in this light is mainly
due their rapid extension within the last two or three genera-
tions. No excuse therefore is needed for examining their
prevalence and its causes in some detail.
For the ultimate origin of the prohibition of widow marriage
among the higher castes we must look back,
widow marriage un- ^ar heyond the comparative civilization of
known in Vedic the Vedas, to the really primitive belief that
times' the dead chief or head of the family will need
human companionship and service in that other world which
savage fancy pictures as a shadowy copy of this. To this
belief is due the practice of burning the widow on the funeral
pile of her dead husband, which is referred to as an " ancient
custom" (purdnd dharmd) in the Atharva Veda.* The direc-
tions given in the Rig Veda for placing the widow on the pile
with her husband's corpse, and then calling her back to the
world of life, appear, as Tylor \ has pointed out, to represent
" a reform and a reaction against a yet more ancient savage rite
of widow sacrifice, which they prohibited in fact, but yet kept
up in symbol." The bow of the warrior and the sacrificial
instruments of the priest were thrown back upon the pile to be
consumed; the wife, after passing through the mere form of
sacrifice, was held to have fulfilled her duties to her husband
and was free to marry again. A passage in the Rig Veda
quoted by Zimmer f shows that in some cases, at any rate, the
widow married her husband's younger brother (devar); and it
is not unreasonable to suppose that her obligations in this
respect were very much what we now find among the castes
which permit widow marriage.
I
* Atharva Veda, 18, 3, 1, quoted by Zimmer, Altindisches Lebcn, p. 331.
t Primitive Culture, i., 466,
\ Altindisches Lebeu, p. 329. See also Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, 575, and
Macdonell, History of Sanskrit Literature, 126. Jolly, Recht und Sitte, 59, seems to take
a different view.
^.V^ marriage of a widow, and the convention enjoining the mar-
riage of a daughter before she attains physical
Widow and infant . .. T r ii i • i i.^^
marriage. maturity. In the case 01 the higher castes
both of these usages may claim a respectable
antiquity. In the lower strata of society, on the other hand,
they appear to have been developed, in the form which they
now assume, at a comparatively recent date under the pressure
of peculiar social conditions. Both, again, are looked upon by
the people who observe them as badges of social distinction,
and to the fact that they are regarded in this light is mainly
due their rapid extension within the last two or three genera-
tions. No excuse therefore is needed for examining their
prevalence and its causes in some detail.
For the ultimate origin of the prohibition of widow marriage
among the higher castes we must look back,
widow marriage un- ^ar heyond the comparative civilization of
known in Vedic the Vedas, to the really primitive belief that
times' the dead chief or head of the family will need
human companionship and service in that other world which
savage fancy pictures as a shadowy copy of this. To this
belief is due the practice of burning the widow on the funeral
pile of her dead husband, which is referred to as an " ancient
custom" (purdnd dharmd) in the Atharva Veda.* The direc-
tions given in the Rig Veda for placing the widow on the pile
with her husband's corpse, and then calling her back to the
world of life, appear, as Tylor \ has pointed out, to represent
" a reform and a reaction against a yet more ancient savage rite
of widow sacrifice, which they prohibited in fact, but yet kept
up in symbol." The bow of the warrior and the sacrificial
instruments of the priest were thrown back upon the pile to be
consumed; the wife, after passing through the mere form of
sacrifice, was held to have fulfilled her duties to her husband
and was free to marry again. A passage in the Rig Veda
quoted by Zimmer f shows that in some cases, at any rate, the
widow married her husband's younger brother (devar); and it
is not unreasonable to suppose that her obligations in this
respect were very much what we now find among the castes
which permit widow marriage.
I
* Atharva Veda, 18, 3, 1, quoted by Zimmer, Altindisches Lebcn, p. 331.
t Primitive Culture, i., 466,
\ Altindisches Lebeu, p. 329. See also Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, 575, and
Macdonell, History of Sanskrit Literature, 126. Jolly, Recht und Sitte, 59, seems to take
a different view.