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The sin incumbent oil the failure of marrying the
daughter at the proper time is ‘ equivalent to the slaying of an
embryo ‘; that is the rule, of the sacred law".135
It is doubtful if this is from Vasishtha, for the evidence of
contemporary books and of the later Smritis show clearly that child-
marriage came into vogue quite late in Indian history. Verses like the
above, corroborating such an institution, are probably the
additions of later compilers. 136
We find for the first time here, abduction not
followed by sacrament, discarded. The earlier lawgivers have given a
place to it among the recognised systems. Vasishtha welcomes an
abducted girl into society, and says, ‘ If a damsel has been
abducted by force, and not been wedded with sacred texts, she may be
lawfully given to another man ; she is even like a maiden ‘.137
This, idea is further developed in Devala Smriti.
The wife of an emigrant could marry after a lapse of
five years.138
If she were unwilling to do so, she had to live like a widow. 139
He further specifies the conditions of the rule by allotting five
years each to a Brahmana and Kshatriya wife, four years to a Vaisya
and three years to a Sudra, 140
after which the abandoned wives could marry again.
Vasishtha exempts from tax widows who return to their
former family, unmarried maidens, and the wives of servants.141
In prescribing penances for women the mental unfaithfulness of a wife
has to be expiated by a penance, which consists mainly of a frugal
meal and sleeping on bare ground.142
For improper conversation with a man the penance is
more severe : and when a woman over steps virtue, the penances are
still more severe but they do not equal in severity those of the later
law givers The three great crimes for which women can be out casted
are ‘ the murder of their husband, slaying a learned Brahmana and
the destruction of the fruit of their womb’.143
Still the punishment is not as severe as on the present age, when in
such cases, a wife has to forfeit her life.
A wife could never be abandoned by a man on any
account, ‘ though tainted by sin, whether she be quarrel some, or
has left the house, or has suffered criminal force or has fallen into
the hands of thieves’; a wife must not be abandoned, for ‘ to
forsake her is not prescribed by the sacred law '.144
This is quite contradictory to what has been said previously that
a woman should be abandoned under similar circumstances. This is
perhaps the original view of Vasishtha and the other a later addition.
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