Indian Culture And Traditions
A Few Questions On The Mahabharata And Clarifications
(By T.N.Sethumadhavan)
My grandson who is studying in the
USA raised a few interesting questions on the Mahabharata relating to
monogamy/polygamy, dharma and avatars which I clarified to him. Q&A
is reproduced below.
I - Evolution of monogamy
Question
1. “I am in the episode where Kunti
marries Pandu. Now, why was it important in those times for kings to have
more than one wife? Wasn't it morally wrong at that time? If that is not
wrong, why is it frowned upon in this time?”
Response:
This question is about evolution of
monogamy (having only one wife by a male e.g. Rama and Sita) from
polygamy (having more than one wife eg. Dasaratha and his three queens)
in Hindu society. There was another system also which was called
polyandry (one female having more than one husband eg Draupadi and five
Pandavas).
To put it in other words the student
wants to know whether polygamy was right or wrong. If it is right why it
is not practiced now and if it was wrong why was it practiced then?
To find out answers to these
questions we must know about the evolution of human society with
particular reference to the institution of marriage according to
Hinduism.
Marriage is one institution that is
looked upon as sacred and having existed from time immemorial. This is
one aspect of Hindu culture which has never been treated lightly in
traditional literature.
MARRIAGE - FROM PROMISCUITY TO
MONOGAMY
Marriage has been looked upon as
having been made in heaven. In India we look upon it as a divine knot
sanctified by fire. A marriage ceremony continues to be a tradition-bound
one in an overwhelming number of cases. Civil marriage is still a newborn
practice.
In a traditional Hindu society love
marriages are frowned upon and the majority still opts for arranged
marriages. The low divorce rate is evidence of the sanctity and respect
that is still attached to the institution of marriage. Traditionally an
Indian wife has been portrayed as being devoted to her husband owing her
position entirely to her husband. But today with the rate of literacy
among girls being on the rise there is an increasing murmur in society
against marriage being a form of domination of the female by the male. No
doubt the male sex is physically dominant but the two sexes have always
been intricately bound up with each other in an emotive, sensual
and social relationship. If physical superiority of the male sex
was enough to ensure subjugation of the female sex we would never
have had matriarchy and superiority of a woman as a mother right in
the past.
Pairing between the sexes is a part
of social life and hence it affects and is affected by other facets of
social life. The method of acquiring the means of sustenance, the title
(ownership) to property, the form of inheritance etc. have a determining
say in the marital customs that exist. Again animals are promiscuous
(i.e. free for all - no restrictions of any kind) but civilized humans
are monogamous, thus the change from promiscuity to monogamy must have
occurred in the long process of evolution from ape to man and then from
savagery to civilization.
SOCIAL EVOLUTION
Man has inherited his first form of
sustenance viz., hunting and gathering from lower animals who sustain
themselves either by preying on other animals or by grazing on vegetation.
A society based on hunting and gathering had to carry out its activities
in a collective manner.
Correspondingly sexual life was also
promiscuous. In the harsh environs, there was no accumulation of wealth,
everything that was gathered or caught had to be consumed, and there
could be no saving.
Property was negligible and whatever
property existed was in the form of crude tools, made of stone and bone
and this belonged to the tribe as a whole, as every member participated
in the hunt which was by nature a collective activity. The marital custom
associated with this form of existence was promiscuity. This age has been
termed as Kritayuga in the Rigveda.
PASTORAL SOCIETY LEADS TO
ACCUMULATION OF WEALTH
From hunting and gathering man evolved
to a pastoral living. With the domestication of cattle, life centered on
the tending of cattle and the property still being held collectively but
its ownership now being limited to clans of a similar group; pairing or
group marriage was limited to members from that clan. Activity was still
collective but with the growing productive power consequent to
domestication of cattle it became possible and necessary to accumulate
cattle by rearing them.
An easy way of increasing the number
of cattle was to rob that which was reared by another clan, thus the
Vedic word for war was Gavisti which literally means to "search for
cows". In this environment when the life of all members of a clan
depended on the property (cattle) which they owned together the clan
became cohesive and endogenous (growing from within). Marriage was
limited to members of the clan and marriage with members of another clan
was looked upon with hostility. As the wealth of the clan grew by
plunder and increase in productive power, the male sex acquired the role
of custodians of clan property.
MONOGAMOUS MARRIAGE BECOMES A SOCIAL
NECESSITY
In a Matriarchy the senior most lady
in a tribe/clan was recognized as the leader. Patriarchy replaced
Matriarchy as Accumulation of Property made Monogamous Marriage a Social
Necessity.
The root of the word for father in
most ancient languages of the Indo-Aryan group is ' Pa ' which means to
protect. By virtue of its physical superiority the male sex took the lead
in plundering the wealth of other clans. Thus the title to property
gradually came to be held exclusively by males as against its being held
collectively till then.
The evolution of individual title to
property among male members of a clan was a logical culmination of this
process. But the change in title to property from communal to individual
raised the question of inheritance. Under promiscuous matriarchy the
father could not be an identifiable parent. And to make possible the
transition of the title to property from father to son on the demise of
the father, there had to be an identifiable father and a son.
To make this possible, promiscuity
had to give way to monogamous marriage where only one male member, is
tied in wedlock to one female member. This shift did take place, but it was not an
abrupt one, there had to be many intervening stages of polygamy,
polyandry, etc., till monogamy could become the order of the day.
POLYGAMY & POLYANDRY
Polygamy is the practice of having
multiple mates that could be of any gender simultaneously. Polygamy may
not always be legal in a society, but it has been recorded in virtually
every society and culture. In the days of early humans, hunter gatherers
engaged in multi-male and multi-female mating practices. When civilizations
first developed, the most powerful men with the most land and resources
often had thousands of wives while poor men often didn't have wives at
all.
Polygamy remained a common phenomenon
for a long time with kings and noblemen having more than one partner in
their harem. But even polyandry continued to linger on for a long time.
There are instances of polyandry in Indian mythology, though they have
been explained away as a fortuitous result of events. The Mahabharata
episode where the five Pandava princes have a common wife is one such
instance. Although as per the Mahabharata this instance of polyandry was
not intentional; its very existence is evidence of the fact that
polyandry had not yet become unacceptable.
But even after monogamy became an
established practice, occasionally people must have reverted to practices
of polygamy, polyandry and promiscuity.
Polygamy and polyandry were prevalent
in ancient India, but it is doubtful whether they were ever popular in
the public opinion. It was practiced mostly by the warrior castes and
rich merchants. Polygamy in ancient India was a matter of personal
choice, status symbol and at times social, moral and religious
obligation.
Marriage in traditional Hinduism was
meant for progeny and carrying out obligatory duties (dharmakaryam) in
accordance of a person's dharma
so that the four major aims (purusharthas)
of human life could be realized. If polygamy served these ideals, the
Hindu law books did not object to its practice. The Hindu law
books made provision for polygamy and certain marriages under
special circumstances for continuation of family lineage.
If we study the history of ancient
India, we realize that polygamy and polyandry were practiced by the rich
and the powerful, while the sages and seers were strictly monogamous or
completely celibate. We also notice that whether it was in the past or in
the present, polygamy was never a popular practice in the public opinion.
Yet in the epics and the Puranas we
cannot fail to notice the prevalence of the practice and the tensions and
the obstacles it created in the families and in the performance of
obligatory duties. Lord Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu, was strictly
monogamous, a practice that was in accordance with the mortal standards
of Treta yuga (the great epoch) in which he incarnated. In contrast,
Lord Krishna, another incarnation of Vishnu, who incarnated in the
Dwapara yuga, was polygamous. The Pandavas, to whom he was related
through his sister, practiced both polyandry and polygamy.
The gradual evolution of the present
practice of monogamy is reflected in the Mahabharata, in which the great
patriarch Bheeshma divides the evolution of the institution of monogamous
marriage into four stages which he associates with the four Yugas in
which the Rigveda has divided Aryan Man's development.
HINDUISM DOES NOT FAVOR POLYGAMY
Hindu scriptures describe family as a
social institution, and at the same time as an integral part of
this illusory world. In the ultimate sense the institution of family
is meant to keep each individual chained to the world of illusion.
The relationships in the family are meant to
develop attachment, selfishness and desires. In the end these
relationships really do not last, just as everything here is impermanent
and each individual is left to himself or herself to take care of
liberation.
When it comes to the pursuit of the
three chief aims of human life (purusharthas),
namely dharma
(religion), artha (wealth)
and kama
(sensual pleasure), we may take advantage of conjugal relationships, but
in case of the fourth aim, moksha
(liberation), we have to take sole responsibility for its attainment, by
withdrawing ourselves from all relationships, attachments and
allurements.
From a spiritual perspective,
Hinduism therefore views family as an illusion (samsara maya) and
the main cause of our attachments. Hinduism therefore exhorts every
individual to be wary of the illusory nature of the family and develop a
divine oriented attitude, while performing their obligatory duties as
worship to God.
Since family itself is an instrument
of maya,
polygamy makes it more difficult for the male member involved in it
to break out of his illusions. The extent of karmic burden created out of
multiple conjugal relationships is enormous due to the number of lives
that become entwined with him in his role as the husband and the father
of many. Whatever he does or does not would affect the lives of the women
he married and those of their children. Spiritually, therefore
polygamy is the least desirable option for an individual to pursue.
POLYGAMY IN CONTEMPORARY HINDU SOCIETY
Present day Hindus do not practice
polygamy. They consider both polygamy and polyandry primitive and
immoral; remnants of an old society that still haunt the lives of a few
unfortunate victims. It is not that it is entirely absent, but those who
practice it are subject to great social and family pressure. Many keep
the second marriage a secret, knowing the consequences.
In India, the Hindu Marriage Act 1955
declares polygamy as both illegal and punishable under the law. One
of the conditions stipulated by the Act is that a marriage may be
solemnized between any two Hindus, only if neither party has a spouse
living at the time of the marriage. The Act also makes provision for
seeking divorce on the grounds of adultery or if either party had married
again without divorce or was already married and was not legally
divorced. The Act explicitly declares bigamy a punishable offence under
Indian Penal Code. Because of these reasons the latest concept of
“live in relationship” between a man and a woman is also frowned upon
in India.
CONCLUSION
It would be observed from the above
discussion that the journey from promiscuity to polygamy to monogamy has
been a process of social evolution and not an incident or occurrence that
happened at a single point of time. It took millions of years for this
process to take the present shape. We cannot be sure that this phase is
going to be a final one since the society is a living organism undergoing
a constant change and the concept of monogamy may witness a change in the
future depending upon the standard of morals that may prevail at that
point of time. The present practice of “live in relationship” is a
taste of things that may emerge from the womb of time in the decades to
come.
Hence
there is nothing absolutely or irrevocably right and wrong or moral
and immoral for all times to come; it all depends on the prevailing
social conditions. We have to view the processes from the same angle of
time, space and causality (circumstances) in which they took place and no
judgment can be passed with hindsight or allow our imagination to run wild
with the so called foresight.
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
(Continued...)
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