Infanticide

The practice of parents killing their child
is uncommon and subject to sharp condemnation. In some cases these infants
are illegitimate, and infanticide or abandonment is an attempt to avoid the
social repercussions of what is considered an immoral act.
There are several examples of this
practice in Hindu mythology, of whom
the best known is Kunti. Kunti has been
given a mantra by the sage Durvasas,
which gives her the power to conceive
and bear children by the gods. On a
whim, Kunti impulsively uses the
mantra to invoke the Sun, by whom
she conceives and bears her son Karna.
In her panic at unexpectedly becoming
a mother—she was still unmarried,
and understandably concerned about
what people might think—she puts
the child in a box and abandons him
in the Ganges.
In other cases, infants are killed by
their parents because of the family’s
desperate poverty. Almost without
exception, the children killed in such
cases are daughters. If caught, the parents would be subject to a murder
charge. But infanticide is often hard to
prove if a baby was not born in a hospital, where births are formally registered.
For poor families, daughters are often
seen as a tremendous financial burden,
because the expense that will be necessary to arrange their marriages is often
more than people can pay. This attitude
toward daughters is also reinforced by
the traditional Indian marriage pattern,
in which a family’s sons bring their
brides into the family home, continue
the joint family, and care for their
parents in their old age. Since after
marriage daughters become members
of their husband’s family, they are often
seen as “temporary” residents in the
homes of their parents. For further
information see Elizabeth Bumiller,
May You Be the Mother of a Hundred
Sons, 1990.