Divorce in the Laws of Manu

It has been claimed that the early Eastern civilization of the Hindus bears a closer resemblance to Western civilization than many others because of the influence of Aryan culture. However this may be, we find that the Indian family life at the dawn of the historic era was typically patriarchal. In the heroic age of the Vedas the father was master and owner of his entire household. The laws of Manu is an ancient compilation of institutional ordinances attributed to the legendary Hindu lawgiver of uncertain date. The code in its present form is regarded by the best authorities to have been assembled about the beginning of the Christian era. It contains many regulations in regard to marriage and divorce which doubtless had their origins in ancient usages.

Women at all times are under the complete tutelage of men. Their subserviency is absolute and their right to divorce specifically is denied, and no redress for wrongs is provided by that method:

"In childhood a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her lord is dead to her sons; a woman must never be independent."

"She must not seek to separate herself from her father, husband, or sons; by leaving them she would make both (her own and her husband's) families contemptible."

"She must always be cheerful, clever in (the management of her) household affairs, careful in cleaning her. utensils, and economical in expenditure." "Him to whom her father may give her, or her brother with the father's permission, she shall obey as long as he lives, and when he is dead, she must not insult (his memory)."

"She who shows disrespect to (a husband) who is addicted to (some evil) passion, is a drunkard, or diseased, shall be deserted for three months (and be) deprived of her ornaments and furniture."

By surrounding marriage with religious sanctions the Brahman law sought to improve its status. First, by doing away with forcible abduction and especially with marriage by purchase which formerly had been extensive. "No father who knows the law must take even the smallest gratuity for his daughter," and he that does so is a "seller of his offspring." Nevertheless marriage by purchase was not eliminated, but ultimately it took the form of a marriage gift from the husband which was settled on the wife and became her dowry, and which passed to her family at her death. Second, although the wife remained under the complete domination of her husband an effort was made to soften her lot by religious appeal.

"Women must be honored and adorned by their fathers, brothers, husbands and brothers-in-law, who desire (their own) welfare." "Where women are honored, there the gods are pleased; but where they are not honored, no sacred rite yields reward."

"Let mutual fidelity continue until death; this may be considered as the summary of the highest law for husband and wife."

"The husband receives his wife from the gods, (he does not wed her) according to his own will; doing what is agreeable to the gods, he must always support her (while she is) faithful."

According to most interpreters marriage under the Laws of Manu was a kind of religious sacrament which never wholly could be dissolved. Even where the marriage was annulled or where the wife was "superseded" it does not seem to have implied more than divorce a mensa et thoro. "Neither by sale nor by repudiation is a wife released from her husband; such we know the law to be, which the Lord of Creatures (Pragapati) made of old." It appears that remarriage for the wife never was allowed whereas the husband exercised that privilege.

The husband was accorded the right to annul a marriage for certain reasons and to abandon his wife: "Though (a man) may have accepted a damsel in due form, he may abandon (her if she be) blemished, diseased, or deflowered, and (if she have been) given with fraud." There were other conditions on which, however, he might either desert or supersede her:

"For one year let a husband bear with a wife who hates him; but after (the lapse of) a year let him deprive her of her property and cease to cohabit with her" . . . "She who drinks spirituous liquor, is of bad conduct, rebellious, diseased, mischievous, or wasteful, may at any time be superseded (by another wife)" . . . "A barren wife may be superseded in the eighth year, she whose children (all) die in the tenth, she who bears only daughters in the eleventh, but she who is quarrelsome without delay." In still other instances the right of the husband is restricted in the use of his ordinary prerogatives:

"But she who shows aversion to a mad or outcast (husband), a eunuch, one destitute of manly strength, or one afflicted with such diseases as punish crimes, shall neither be cast off nor be deprived of her property." "But a sick wife who is kind (to her husband) and virtuous in her conduct, may be superseded (only) with her own consent and must never be disgraced."

It appears, therefore, that while the patriarchal power of the husband was almost absolute, there was growing up at the time this law was promulgated a certain amount of limitation in the wife's favor, and while it did not offer her the privilege of divorce it did afford her a definite degree of protection. Although the husband's right to take as many wives as he chose seems scarcely to have been restricted, he could not, with inpunity, dismiss existing wives except on the grounds of the defects enumerated.