Women and Punishment in Manusmriti
📖Manusmriti Verse 8.371
If a woman, proud of relations and her qualities, passes over her husband, the king shall have her devoured by dogs in a place frequented by many.
📖Manusmriti Verse 9.78
If the wife disregards her husband who is mad, or intoxicated, or afflicted by disease, she should be deprived of ornaments and appurtenances and abandoned for three months.
On women Property Rights
📖Manusmriti Verse 8.416
The wive, the son and the slave,—these three are declared to have no property; whatever they acquire is the property of him to whom they belong.
On Polygamy
📖Manusmriti Verse 3.13
For the Śūdra, the Śūdra girl. alone has been ordained to be the wife; for the Vaiśya, she as also the girl of his own caste; for the Kṣatriya, those two as also the girl of his own caste; and for the Brāhmaṇa those three as also the girl of his own caste.
Replacing wives
📖Manusmriti Verse 9.80-81
If the wife is a drunkard, or false in conduct, or rebellious, or diseased or mischievous, or wasteful,—she should be superseded, The barren wife shall be superseded in the eighth year; in the tenth she whose children die off; in the eleventh she who bears only daughters; but immediately she who talks harshly
Women witness
📖Manusmriti Verse 8.77
A single man, free from covetousness, may be a witness, but not many women, even though pure,—because the understanding of women is not steady,—nor other men who are tainted with defects
On Widow remarriage ban
📖Manusmriti Verse 8.226
The marriage-ritual texts are applicable to virgins only, and nowhere among men, to non-virgins; and this because these latter are excluded from religious acts.
📖Manusmriti Veres 5.155-156
Well might she macerate her body by means of pure flowers, roots and fruits; but she should not even mention the name of another man, after her husband is dead. Till her death, she should remain patient, self-controlled and chaste,—seeking that most excellent merit that accrues to women having a single husband”
📖Manusmriti Verse 9.65
Nowhere in the mantra-texts bearing upon marriage is ‘authorisation’ mentioned; nor again is the marriage of the widow mentioned in the injunction of marriage.
