Kautilya's Maxims
15
Remarriage of an Abandoned Wife
(ArS 3/4:31-36)

[Previous Discussion]: Abandonment by the husband in a consummated marriage.

[Unattributed]: After a lawful marriage, the woman shall wait for a husband who has left without informing her for seven [menstrual] periods if no news is heard of him, or for a year if news is heard. If he has left after informing her, she shall wait for five periods when no news is heard, or ten if news is heard. If he had paid only part of the dowry, she shall wait for three periods if there is no news, or seven periods if there is news of him. If he had paid the full dowry, then five periods if there is no news, or ten if there is news. She may then, with the permission of the judges, remarry as she wishes.

Kautilya: For the neglect of the period is the violation of a lawful duty.

The husband's neglect of conjugal duty creates a ground of action by the wife. The rules on which Kautilya comments are designed to establish the legal presumption of abandonment in various circumstances. Knowledge of the husband's intention to return naturally prolongs the process. This recognition of the rightful expectation of a wife contrasts with the later, more restrictive position reflected in the Laws of Manu (9:76f), which entirely forbid remarriage (9:65f). The gradual reduction of actions permitted for women is a social process. In that process, the position of Kautilya (and the prior opinion which, in effect, he approves) represents a still relatively early stage.

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Here again, as in Maxim #14, is a special situation where the woman is not represented by a parent or husband, and must seek her rights herself. We suspect that such cases, which were not provided for in religion or custom, and thus of their nature required adjudication by some other authority, were the germination point for the beginning of formal law, both in India and in the Mediterranean.

 

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