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Baudhayana agrees with his predecessor Gautama in his
enumeration of marriages. They are eight in number; of these the first
four he recognizes as legal for a Brahmana 37
and among the (four) later each succeeding one is more sinful that
the preceding one; the sixth and the seventh the Asura and
Rakshasa, he recognizes as being compatible with the nature of the
Kshatriyas, for power is their attribute, 38
and he makes the Gandharva and Paisacha legal to the Vaisyas because,
as they subsist by such low occupations as husbandry and service, they
are not particular about their wives. 39
According to the opinion of some legislators of his
times the Gandharva marriage was applicable to all, as it was based on
mutual affection. As the quality of the offspring is said to depend on
the quality of the marriage rite, he warns people against illegal
marriages by alluding to a Vedic passage. His protest against the sale
of a daughter is vehement. Later on, as we shall see in the
contemporary life as depicted by Kautilya, to pay Sulka was a popular
and usual custom, and Baudhayana records his strong protest against
it.
He declares that ‘a female who has been purchased
for money is not a wife. She cannot (assist) at sacrifices offered to
the gods or the manes. Kasyapa has stated that she is a slave. 40
He ordains heavy punishment for fathers who sell their daughters for a
fee. ‘Those wicked men, who, lured by greed, give away a daughter
for a fee, who (thus) sell themselves and commit a great crime, fall
(after death) into a dreadful place of punishment and destroy their
family down to the seventh (generation). Moreover they will repeatedly
die and be born again. All (this) is declared (to happen), if a fee
(is taken).’
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