Adultery

Given the traditional Hindu belief that
women are the vessels and guardians of
family status, rules about adultery outlined in the dharma literature are
mostly concerned with the conduct of
women, although these texts do prescribe a penance (prayashchitta) for a
man who commits adultery with
another man’s wife. As outlined in the
dharma literature, adultery is much
more serious for women. It is notable
that in most cases the dharma does not
recommend the woman be driven from
her home. An adulterous woman is to
perform a rigorous penance until her
next menstrual period—sleeping on the
ground, wearing dirty clothes, and getting very little food; during this time she
also loses her status as a lady of the
house and whatever domestic authority
she may have wielded. According to the
dharma literature, all of this is to end
with a bath at the end of her menstrual
period, after which she is accepted back
at her former status. Women who conceive as a result of adulterous liaisons
are to be abandoned. In practice this
often means being secluded and cut off
from the family, although she still
receives food. Abandonment is also recommended in certain other cases: in
adulterous liaisons with a man’s student
or his guru, if a woman attempts to kill
her husband, or if she kills her fetus. The
reluctance to completely cast a woman
away, and the willingness to bring her
back to her former status after doing
penance, both reflect the importance of
marriage and family life in Hindu culture, as well as women’s importance in
the family.
Although these prescriptions in the
dharma literature seem relatively
humane, often there has been a considerable difference between these prescriptions and a particular group’s
actual practice. In general, the higher
the group’s social status (or the more a
group is trying to improve its social status), the more harshly it treats such
infractions, since these infractions
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Adultery
injure its social standing. At present this
disjunction is also affected by the differing attitudes toward sexuality between
rural and urban contexts, with the latter
tending to be more permissive and the
former far more restrictive. These differences are illustrated by occasional
reports of adulterous women being
killed to restore the family’s honor; this
far exceeds even the harshest penalty
prescribed in the dharma literature.