ARYANS MARITAL RELATIONS OF MEN AND WOMEN

We may next proceed to consider the marital relations of men and women. What does history say? In the beginning there was no law of marriage among the Aryans. It was a state of complete promiscuity both in the higher and lower classes of the society. There was no such thing as a question of prohibited degrees as the following instances will show.

Brahma married his own daughter Satarupa. Their son was Manu the founder of the Pruthu dynasty which preceded the rise of the Aiksvakas and the Ailas.

Hiranyakashpu married his daughter Rohini. Other cases of father marrying daughters are Vashishtha and Shatrupa, Janhu and Jannhavi, and Surya and Usha. That such marriages between father and daughters were common is indicated by the usage of recognizing Kanin sons. Kanin sons mean sons born to unmarried daughter. They were in law the sons of the father of the girl. Obviously they must be sons begotten by the father on his own daughter

There are cases of father and son cohabiting with the same woman, Brahma is the father of Manu and Satarupa is his mother. This Satarupa is also the wife of Manu. Another case is that of Shradha. She is the wife of Vivasvat. Their son is Manu. But Shradha is also the wife of Manu thus indicating the practice of father and son sharing a woman. It was open for a person to marry his brother's daughter. Dharma married 10 daughters of Daksha though Daksha and Dharma were brothers. One could also marry his uncle's daughter as did Kasyapa who married 13 wives all of whom were the daughters of Daksha and Daksha was the brother of Kasyapa's father Marichi.

The case of Yama and Yami mentioned in the Rig-Veda is a notorious case, which throws a great deal of light on the question of marriages between brothers and sisters. Because Yama refused to cohabit with Yami it must not be supposed that such marriages did not exist.

The Adi Parva of the Mahabharata gives a genealogy which begins from Brahmadeva. According to this genealogy Brahma had three sons Marichi, Daksha and Dharma and one daughter whose name the genealogy unfortunately does not give. In this very genealogy it is stated that Daksha married the daughter of Brahma who was his sister and had a vast number of daughters variously estimated as being between 50 and 60. Other instances of marriages between brothers and sisters could be cited. They are Pushan and his sister Acchoda and Amavasu. Purukutsa and Narmada, Viprachiti and Simhika, Nahusa and Viraja, Sukra-Usanas and Go, Amsumat and Yasoda, Dasaratha and Kausalya, Rama and Sita; Suka and Pivari; Draupadi and Prasti are all cases of brothers marrying sisters.

The following cases show that there was no prohibition against son cohabiting with his mother. There is the case of Pushan and his mother Manu and Satrupa and Manu and Shradha. Attention may also be drawn to two other cases, Arjuna and Urvashi and Arjuna and Uttara. Uttara was married to Abhimanyu son of Arjuna when he was barely 16. Uttara was associated with Arjuna. He taught her music and dancing. Uttara is described as being in love with Arjuna and the Mahabharata speaks of their getting married as a natural sequel to their love affair. The Mahabharata does not say that they were actually married but if they were, then Abhimanyu can be said to have married his mother. The Arjuna Urvasi episode is more positive in its indication.

Indra was the real father of Arjuna. Urvashi was the mistress of Indra and therefore in the position of a mother to Arjuna. She was a tutor to Arjuna and taught him music and dancing. Urvasi became enamoured of Arjuna and with the consent of his father, Indra, approached Arjuna for sexual intercourse. Arjuna refused to agree on the ground that she was like mother to him. Urvashi's conduct has historically more significant than Arjuna's denial and for two reasons. The very request by Urvashi to Arjuna and the consent by Indra show that Urvashi was following a well established practice. Secondly, Urvashi in her reply to Arjuna tells him in a pointed manner that this was a well recognized custom and that all Arjuna's forefathers had accepted precisely similar invitations without any guilt being attached to them.

Nothing illustrates better than the complete disregard of consanguinity in cohabitation in ancient India than the following story which is related in the second Adhyaya of the Harivamsha. According to it Soma was the son of ten fathers—suggesting the existence of Polyandry—each one of whom was called Pralheta. Soma had a daughter Marisha—The ten fathers of Soma and Soma himself cohabited with Marisha. This is a case of ten grand-fathers and father married to a woman who was a grand-daughter and daughter to her husbands. In the same Adhyaya the story of Daksha Prajapati is told. This Daksha Prajapati who is the son of Soma is said to have given his 27 daughters to his father, Soma for procreation. In the third Adhyaya of Harivamsha the author says that Daksha gave his daughter in marriage to his own father Brahma on whom Brahma begot a son who became famous as Narada. All these are cases of cohabitation of Sapinda men, with Sapinda women.