ascribed by MENU to each, hear now ye Bráhmens, CHAP. hear it all from me, who fully declare it! 37. The son of a Bráhmì, or wife by the first cere( mony, redeems from sin, if he performs virtuous acts, 'ten ancestors, ten descendants, and himself the twenty-first person. 38. A son, born of a wife by the Daiva nuptials, 'redeems seven and seven in higher and lower degrees; of a wife by the Arsha, three and three; of a wife by the Prájápatya, six and six. 39. By four marriages, the Brahma and so forth, in direct order, are born sons illumined by the Veda, 'learned men, beloved by the learned, 6 40. Adorned with beauty, and with the quality of goodness, wealthy, famed, amply gratified with lawful enjoyments, performing all duties, and living a hundred years: 41. But in the other four base marriages, which remain, are produced sons acting cruelly, speaking falsely, abhorring the Véda, and the duties prescribed ' in it. 6 42. From the blameless nuptial rites of men spring a blameless progeny; from the reprehensible, a reprehensible offspring: let mankind, therefore, studiously avoid the culpable forms of marriage. 43. The ceremony of joining hands is appointed for those, who marry women of their own class; · but K III. CHAP. but, with women of a different class, the following nuptial ceremonies are to be observed: 44. By a Cshatriyà on her marriage with a Bráh6 men, an arrow must be held in her hand; by a Vaisyà woman, with a bridegoom of the sacerdotal or military class, a whip; and by a Súdrà bride, marrying a priest, a soldier, or a merchant, must be held the skirt of a mantle. 45. 6 season, LET the husband approach his wife in due that is, at the time fit for pregnancy; let him be constantly satisfied with her alone; but, except on the forbidden days of the moon, he may approach her, being affectionately disposed, even out of due season, with a desire of conjugal intercourse. 46. Sixteen days and nights in each month, with 'four distinct days neglected by the virtuous, are • called the natural season of women: 6 47. Of those sixteen, the four first, the eleventh, and the thirteenth, are reprehended: the ten remaining nights are approved. 48. Some say, that on the even nights are con'ceived sons; on the odd nights daughters; therefore let the man, who wishes for a son, approach his wife in due season on the even nights; 6 49. But a boy is in truth produced by the greater quantity of the male strength; and a girl by a greater quantity of the female; by equality, an her maphrodite, 6 6 6 maphrodite, or a boy and a girl; by weakness or CHAP. deficiency, is occasioned a failure of conception. 50. He, who avoids conjugal embraces on the six reprehended nights and on eight others, is equal in chastity to a Brahmachárì, in whichever of the two next orders he may live. 6 51. LET no father, who knows the law, receive a gratuity, however small, for giving his daughter in marriage; since the man, who, through avarice, takes a gratuity for that purpose, is a seller of his offspring. 52. Whatever male relations, through delusion of I mind, take possession of a woman's property, be it 6 6 only her carriages or her clothes, such offenders will sink to a region of torment. 53. Some say that the bull and cow given in the nuptial ceremony of the Rishis, are a bribe to the father; but this is untrue; a bribe indeed, whether large or small, is an actual sale of the daughter. 54. When money or goods are given to damsels, whose kinsmen receive them not for their own use, it is no sale: it is merely a token of courtesy and 'affection to the brides. 55. Married women must be honoured and adorned by their fathers and brethren, by their husbands, and by the brethren of their husbands, if they seek abundant prosperity : K 2 56. Where III. CHAP. III. 6 56. Where females are honoured, there the deities are pleased; but where they are dishonoured, there all religious acts become fruitless. 57. Where female relations are made miserable, the family of him who makes them so, very soon wholly perishes; but, where they are not unhappy, the family always increases. 58. On whatever houses the women of a family, not being duly honoured, pronounce an imprecation, those houses, with all that belong to them, utterly perish, as if destroyed by a sacrifice for the death of an enemy. 59. Let those women, therefore, be continually supplied with ornaments, apparel and food, at festivals and at jubilees, by men desirous of wealth. 60 'In whatever family the husband is contented 'with his wife, and the wife with her husband, in that house will fortune be assuredly permanent. 61. Certainly, if the wife be not elegantly attired, she will not exhilarate her husband; and if her lord want hilarity, offspring will not be produced. 62. A wife being gaily adorned, her whole house ' is embellished; but, if she be destitute of ornament, 'all will be deprived of decoration. 63. By culpable marriages, by omission of pre'scribed ceremonies, by neglect of reading the Veda, ' and ' and by irreverence toward a Bráhmen, great families CHAP. are sunk to a low state: < 6 64. So they are by practising manual arts, by lending at interest and other pecuniary transactions, by begetting children on Súdràs only, by traffick in 'kine, horses, and carriages, by agriculture and by 'attendance on a king. < 65. 6 66. But families, enriched by a knowledge of the Veda, though possessing little temporal wealth, are ' numbered among the great, and acquire exalted fame. 67. LET the house-keeper perform domestick religious rites, with the nuptial fire, according to law, and the ceremonies of the five great sacraments, and the several acts which must day by day be per'formed. 68. A house-keeper has five places of slaughter, or where small living creatures may be slain; his kitchen-hearth, his grindstone, his broom, his pestle and mortar, his water-pot; by using which, he becomes in bondage to sin: 69. For the sake of expiating offences committed ignorantly in those places mentioned in order, the five great sacraments were appointed by eminent sages III. |