z:\ ambedkar\vol 04\vol4 05.indd MK SJ DK YS 23 9 2013/YS 8 11 2013 227
RIDDLE NO. 19
227
father of the girl. The difference between Prajapatya and Brahma marriage lies in the fact that in the latter the gift of the daughter is made by the father voluntarily but has to be applied for. The fifth or the Asura form of marriage is that in which the bridegroom having given as much wealth as he can afford to the father and paternal kinsmen and to the girl herself takes her as his wife. There is not much difference between Arsha and Asura forms of marriage. Both involve sale of the bride. The difference lies in this that in the Arsha form the price is fixed while in the Asura form it is not.
Gandharva marriage is a marriage by consent contracted from nonreligious and sensual motives. Marriage by seizure of a maiden by force from her house while she weeps and calls for assistance after her kinsmen and friends have been slain in battle or wounded and their houses broken open, is the marriage styled Rakshasa.
Paisacha marriage is marriage by rape on a girl either when she is asleep or flushed with strong liquor or disordered in her intellect.
Hindu Law recognized thirteen kinds of sons. (1) Aurasa, (2) Kshetraja,
(3) Pautrikaputra, (4) Kanina, (5) Gudhaja, (6) Punarbhava, (7) Sahodhaja,
(8) Dattaka, (9) Kritrima, (10) Kritaka, (11) Apaviddha, (12) Svayamdatta and (13) Nishada.
The Aurasa is a son begotten by a man himself upon his lawfully wedded wife.
Putrikaputra means a son born to a daughter. Its significance lies in the system under which a man who had a daughter but no son could also have his daughter to cohabit with a man selected or appointed by him. If a daughter gave birth to a son by such sexual intercourse the son became the son of the girl’s father. It was because of this that the son was called Putrikaputra. Man’s right to compel his daughter to submit to sexual intercourse with a man of his choice in order to get a son for himself continued to exist even after the daughter was married. That is why a man was warned not to marry a girl who had no brothers.
Kshetraja literally means son of the field i.e., of the wife. In Hindu ideology the wife is likened to the field and the husband being likened to the master of the field. Where the husband was dead, or alive but impotent or incurably diseased the brother or any other sapinda of the deceased was appointed by the family to procreate a son on the wife. The practice was called Niyoga and the son so begotten was called Kshetraja.
If an unmarried daughter living in the house of her father has through illicit intercourse given birth to a son and if she subsequently was married the son before marriage was claimed by her husband as his son. Such a son was called Kanina.