Marriage in Ancient India
The Role and Status of Women and the Brahman Caste
Traditions, privilege and expectations in India from 200 BC.
In the earliest known history of India, young women and men were largely free to enter into romantic relationships with each other without fear of scandal. However, as states and government developed and increased their ability to control the lives of people at a distance, then this romantic freedom was significantly curtailed. In particular, women were made to come to order and become much more submissive and subject to family discipline. Since young women were considered to be flighty, subject to irrational emotions they could not properly control and of value as marriage partners only while they retained their virginity, it was common for them to be married early, before they could get into any trouble.
It was a different story for men.
Ancient society was dominated by the caste system and by the many different traditions that the various ethnic groups all practiced and that made marriage rituals vary as well. Even today, a visitor to modern India is likely to be amazed by the plethora of people all living cheek-by-jowl and marvel at the complexities of trying to make a single society into which all could fit harmoniously. Reading the ‘lonely hearts’ columns in Indian newspapers is to receive an education into how important caste and status still remain.
For the Brahman caste, which was generally considered the highest and most noble, marriage for a man should come as a symbol of reaching a stage of life. The privileged young man would receive spiritual and temporal forms of education until he qualified as an adult and would then be expected to take a wife immediately, so as to notify to the world this change in his status. Of course, most parents would have spent considerable efforts on ensuring that a suitable bride would be available for him.
It was important to get the right choice because marriage was very unlikely to be dissolved before the death of one of the partners, unless those concerned were of a very low caste or else, in some circumstances, the wife could demonstrate the husband’s insanity or impotence. The bride was not to be ignorant – she would have been, at least those who had the fortune to come from families of wealth – extensively educated in suitable religious and moral themes together with, more importantly, various aspects of household management and the arts that might be suitable for young women – such as painting or playing the musical instrument known as the vina.
The age at which the girl was to be married also varied, although girl brides tended to become younger as the centuries passed. It was rare for girls younger than 12 to be married in antiquity but it became increasingly common for girls as young as 6 or 8 to be married as Indian society moved towards the Medieval period.
References and Further Reading
Auboyer, Jeannine, Daily Life in Ancient India: from 200 BC to 700 AD (London: Phoenix Press, 2002). This excellent book was first published in 1961.
