Sacred Concord

Mbh 13.44.3

Mahabharata · translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

"'"The righteous condemn the practice of begetting issue upon Sudra women. A Brahmana, by begetting children upon a Sudra woman, incurs the liability of performing an expiation. A person of thirty years of age should wed a girl of ten years of age called a Nagnika.[279] Or, a person of one and twenty years of age should wed a girl of seven years of age. That girl who has no brother nor father should not be wed, O chief of Bharata's race, for she may be intended as Putrika of her sire.[280] After the appearance of puberty, the girl (if not married) should wait for three years. On the fourth year, she should look for a husband herself (without waiting any longer for her kinsmen to select one for her). The offspring of such a girl do not lose their respectability, nor does union with such a girl become disgraceful. If, instead of selecting a husband for herself, she acts otherwise, she incurs the reproach of Prajapati herself. One should wed that girl who is not a Sapinda of one's mother or of the same Gotra with one's father. Even this is the usage (consistent with the sacred law) which Manu has declared."[281]
Mbh 13.44.3 · Mahabharata · ANUSASANA PARVA

Themes in this passage

FamilyMarriageChildrenDharmaJustice

Family in other traditions

The same theme, as Christianity, Islam, Hellenism and Taoism address it.

The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
Luke 12:53 · Bible · Luke
Unto the men (of a family) belongeth a share of that which parents and near kindred leave, and unto the women a share of that which parents and near kindred leave, whether it be little or much - a legal share.
Quran 4:7 · Quran · Women
“O wretched husband of a wretched wife! Born with one fate, to one unhappy life! For sure one star its baneful beam display’d On Priam’s roof, and Hippoplacia’s shade. From different parents, different climes we came. At different periods, yet our fate the same! Why was my birth to great Aëtion owed, And why was all that tender care bestow’d? Would I had never been!—O thou, the ghost Of my dead husband! miserably lost! Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone! And I abandon’d, desolate, alone! An only child, once comfort of my pains, Sad product now of hapless love, remains! No more to smile upon his sire; no friend To help him now! no father to defend! For should he ’scape the sword, the common doom, What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come! Even from his own paternal roof expell’d, Some stranger ploughs his patrimonial field. The day, that to the shades the father sends, Robs the sad orphan of his father’s friends: He, wretched outcast of mankind! appears For ever sad, for ever bathed in tears; Amongst the happy, unregarded, he Hangs on the robe, or trembles at the knee, While those his father’s former bounty fed Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread: The kindest but his present wants allay, To leave him wretched the succeeding day. Frugal compassion! Heedless, they who boast Both parents still, nor feel what he has lost, Shall cry, ‘Begone! thy father feasts not here:’ The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear. Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears, To my sad soul Astyanax appears! Forced by repeated insults to return, And to his widow’d mother vainly mourn: He, who, with tender delicacy bred, With princes sported, and on dainties fed, And when still evening gave him up to rest, Sunk soft in down upon the nurse’s breast, Must—ah what must he not? Whom Ilion calls Astyanax, from her well-guarded walls,[279] Is now that name no more, unhappy boy! Since now no more thy father guards his Troy.
Iliad 22.46a · Iliad · 22
When the mother is found, we know what her children should be. When one knows that he is his mother's child, and proceeds to guard (the qualities of) the mother that belong to him, to the end of his life he will be free from all peril.
Tao Te Ching 52.2 · Tao Te Ching

See what all six traditions say about family →

Search every tradition at once

Ask a question in your own words and see how six traditions answer it.