Introduction

Before dealing with the subject of matrimonial causes according to the Dharmaśāstra a few comments on the title of this paper may not be out of place. These comments will be mainly of a methodological nature.

A first comment is that the Dharmaśāstra does not have a Matrimonial Causes Act, as is the case in England since 1857. In other words, in the whole of ancient Hindu law one would look in vain for a treatise, or even for a separate chapter, dealing exhaustively with what we call matrimonial causes. The result is that the data which I shall present to you as a more or less coherent whole are really drawn from various unrelated chapters of Dharmaśāstra literature.

This first comment leads me on to my second preliminary remark. The fact that no Sanskrit text deals with matrimonial causes as such should not make you think that the data upon which I shall have to work are few in number. In reality they are numerous, far too numerous to be dealt with at all completely in a short paper. Moreover, they are not only numerous; as is the case with most other topics of ancient Hindu law, here, too, the various sources often seem to contradict or even to be repugnant to each other.