Kinship and Family in Kautilya

Kinship and Family in Kautilya

Dr. S.S. Rana


Family is the basic and universal structure of human society. Every where in all peasant societies there has been a predominance of extended families. Such societies are generally-as can be said of major parts of India since early times-patrilocal and patriarchal. There women find themselves in a relatively subordinated position brought about by the circumstance of their dependency on males of the family representing physical power so vital for carrying out the responsibilities of the occupation. Interpersonal relations of all members are authoritarian based on the myth of male superiority. Marriage is governed by kinship rather than by courtship and considered an interfamilial concern and not an interpersonal concern. Personal freedom, especially of the female is foreign to this life. Where knowledge- largely confined to vocations- is transmitted orally hierarchy of age determined relative authority. The above paradigm can be said to be true in the case of the society of early feudalism that developed in India in the post vedic period- a period which witnessed great churning in terms of social, political, cultural and philosophical ideas. India was, for the first time, attacked by a foreign power-the Macedonian conqueror, Alexander the great. It was the time when the largely fragmented land was occupied by many small monarchical principalities and numerous self sufficient republics. A major happening took place when aided by the giant strategist Chanakya Chandragupta established the great Mauryan empire putting together extensive areas from the Gangetic Valley to the Indus valley after dethroning the nasty Nanda dynasty.
Chanakya, by another name Kautilya is reputed to have authored the highly secular work Arthashastra to serve as an ideal compendium on statecraft which has not forgotten to emphasise welfare of the people as the key word for the ultimate success of a ruler. We may here recall the relevant stanza from the Arthashastra(1.19.34):
Prajasukhe sukham rajnah prajanam cha hite hitam|
Natmapriyam hitam rajnah prajanam tu priyam hitam||
[ In the happiness of his subjects lies the king’s happiness; in the welfare of the subjects lies his welfare. The king should not consider good only that which pleases him but treat as beneficial to him whatever pleases his subjects.]
It is in this context of welfare that Kautilya scores by giving his own tinge of safeguards for members of the weaker sex in whatever station he finds them. It was not in his hands or of the organized imperial state, whose interests he was promoting, to make a substantial dent in the established social order so strongly built and nurtured by the monolithic Brahmanic literature. But it must go to his credit that he recognized the realities of the situation and did his best to resurrect the position of women. We may here gainfully examine his general approach in societal matters in the limited sphere of family and kinship.
It can not be said with an amount of certainty whether the Kautilyan family was extended, joint, nuclear or conjugal but we can glean from his work a fair picture of the nature of relationships and personal rights and duties of the different members of the family as also the related rules and procedures including those concerning inheritance succession and partition of wealth and property. However, we learn that there were families which had the following members: The father or the grihapait ; presumably his mother; the grihapati himself; his wife or wives; his brother/s and sister/s; his son/s; his daughter/s; grandson/s and presumably grand daughters. Possibility of the family patriarch living till he had great grand children can not be ruled out as Kautilya talks of dividing the hitherto unpartitioned property among the scions up to four generations (3.5.4, Kangle’s Vol. II,p.209). Doubt with regard to properties lying undivided for considerable length of time is unnecessary. Even today cases of holdings of land lying unpartitioned for several generations are not unknown among some agricultural communities of North India especially the Jats. Till the middle of the last century there were any number of extended families living together with common land holding. No doubt, this phenomena is throwing up problems of its own sort when joint family system has long lost its sway.
Family represents the second stage i.e. grihastha, a house holder’s life in a man’s life in the scheme of the four ashramas,. It is an important stage when one contributes to economic activity and maintenance of social order in perpetuating the family line. Kalidasa calls this stage the sarvabhogya ashrama (stage of life, sustaining all). To talk about family one has to go back to its basis i.e. marriage and the attending parameters. Kautilya declares that the aim of taking a wife is to beget sons ( I think also daughters)- putrartha hi striyah (3.2.42) Manu (9.29) says the same and a little more in the following words:
Prajanartham mahabhagah pujarha grihadiptayah|
Striyah sriyashcha geheshu na visheshosti kashchana||
In fact according to Kautilya man enters civil life with marriage- avivahad vyavaharah (3.2.1).
Though refreshingly radical and progressive thinker, Kautilya does not proceed to demolish the established cultural paradigms. He not only recognizes the Varna System and the traditional eight forms of marriage but innovates in categorising the four of them as dharmya without pronouncing the rest four by any label like adharmya or the like. He is for Varna vise endogamic marriages but fully recognizes situations where this rule would be transgressed and therefore, accordingly apportions the relative status to the progeny resulting from such marriages.
Father being the head of the family takes most decisions but there are situations when the mother also figures in decision making. The first four of the eight forms of marriage are lawful with the sanction of the father, the remaining four with the sanction of the father and the mother, both (3.2.11).
Kautilya was fully aware of the vulnerability of women before and after marriage. He therefore proceeds to provide safeguards within the prevailing social ethos and brings in the role of the state in prescribing punishment, mostly in the form of fines, for violations of the relevant law. It also served as a means of more revenue to the state. Some of his provisions appear to be ahead of the modern day concerns of the lawmakers. Thus we have Kautilya forestalling present day feminists when he expects the husband to treat the newly wed lady with utmost civility in teaching modest behaviour and not to use abusive expressions like ‘nashte’ (you are lost [beyond redemption]; ‘vinashte’ (you are thoroughly ruined); ‘nyange’ (you are a cripple); ‘apitrike’ (you do not know who your father was); ‘amatrike’ ( your mother abandoned you) [3.3.7]. However, (in case of a slow learner?) a mild strike on the back with either a split bamboo cane or a rope or hand is permitted By making the breach of the above rule a punishable offence he leaves no scope for platitudes, an area where male chauvinists of our times are past masters.
Polygamy was not unknown to Kautilya. However, he was aware of the insecurity this practice could bring about for the existing wife. He therefore provides safeguard, at least economic by making it obligatory for the husband to pay to the wife the dowry amount, the woman’s property (and) in the case of a wife without a dowry or woman’s property of her own a compensation for supersession equal in amount to that, and a suitable maintenance.(3.2.41). Kautilya would not like a polygamous husband to neglect his conjugal obligations to any of his wives and therefore, he prescribes a detailed protocol for the purpose of conjugal relations (3.2.43-47). Breach of the rules makes the husband liable to a fine of maximum of twenty four panas (3.2.40).
Kautilya, to begin with states that there is no divorce in pious (dharmya) marriages (3.3.19). In other forms of marriage divorce is permissible with mutual consent (3.3.17). It is refreshing to note that Kautilya allows breaking of a marriage and abandonment of the husband by the wife if he: has become degraded; is away from home for long time in a foreign land; is a traitor to the king; is dangerous to her life; is declared outcast; becomes impotent (3.2.48).
Kautilya does not see conjugal rights of the husband and the wife in isolation. While ensuring the realization of the respective rights of the two he takes note of situations where exceptions have to be made (3.2.45-47). He does a fine balancing act in dealing with the phenomenon of incompatibility of couples. A wife having dislike of her husband would permit him to go his own way to another woman (3.3.12). But a wife neglected by her husband was entitled to separate from him and live under the protection of a guardian, kinsmen or a mendicant woman (3.3.13). An unscrupulous husband falsely accusing an innocent wife in this respect is sought to be punished in place of being allowed to have his evil ways (3.3.14).
Physical virginity on the part of young girls before marriage and fidelity in marriage is of great importance for Kautilya. Having laid down the age of majority of twelve years for girls and sixteen tears for boys, he would not like the young people to wait endlessly before embarking on their married life. How close we find it to the thinking of the Law commission reported in the media recently! He puts the onus on a father to marry off his daughter within three years of her attaining puberty failing which she was free to marry a man of the same Varna or even of a different Varna, forfeiting in the latter case the ornaments given to her by her father (4.12.10). She would be charged of theft if she took away her father’s property, a disincentive for those planning elopement.
We find Kautilya quite stern in the matter of adulterous relationships. If the wife misbehaves when the husband is away on journey, the kinsman or his servant should put her under guard till her husband returns (4.12.30,31).If the husband tolerates, the wife as also the person committing the crime are set free (4.12.32), otherwise the wife shall be punished by cutting off of her ears and nose, the paramour meeting with death (4.12.33)-exemplary punishment indeed!. But this does not imply that Kautilya was not aware of the basic right of the wife to have her conjugal life. He provides for remarriage of a woman in case of long absence of her husband or his becoming a mendicant after the prescribed period of wait of seven months to one year (where she has borne children (3.4.37). But the fiat is that the remarriage must be contracted with one among the kinsmen of the husband in a set order of preference (3.4.38-41). A woman marrying outside the prescribed list of heirs of the husband violating the kinship boundaries she, along with the man marrying her, will be punished for adultery (3.4.42). Even the accomplish would be similarly punished.
A wife is provided sufficient economic security right from the day of her marriage .Her property (stridhana) consists of an amount for her support and her jewellery. The amount of support would be an endowment of more than two thousand panas. There is no limit to the amount of jewellery (3.2.14,15). The wife was entitled to use her property for maintaining her self and her sons and daughters-in-law in case the husband makes no provision for maintenance of the family before going on long journey. A husband could use his wife’s property for the performance of religious acts to meet emergencies such as disease, famine and unforeseen dangers. The couple together could use, by mutual consent if they beget a son and a daughter (3.2.16). If the husband has had the use of his wife’s property for three years the wife’s right lasts in varying degree only in the last four types of marriage, her claim not sustaining in the first four types (3.2.17-18). This is in consonance with the virtual contractual nature of marriage in the last four types. In case of the wife predeceasing her husband her property shall be divided as under: sons and daughters in equal shares; daughters in equal shares if there were no sons; the husband if there are no children; the dowry, the marriage gifts and any other gifts given by kinsmen shall be repatriated to the donors(3.2.36,37). Quite an unusual provision indeed! A widow, not intending to remarry gets the support endowment, her jewellery, the balance of dowry if any and whatever was given to her by her husband during his lifetime (3.2.19). Even if she remarries, but with the approval of her father- in-law, she will receive what was given to her by her father-in-law and her late husband (3.2.21).On the death of the widow her property will pass on to her sons and daughters.
In the matter of inheritance and partition of ancestral property Kautilya follows the traditional Hindu practice as given in the Dharmashastras. The basic principle is that sons inherit as the son performs ritual funeral and annual pinda ceremonies of his ancestors up to three previous generations- father, grandfather and great grand father. Among the sons, the eldest bears the primary responsibility and is therefore entitled to a special share of the ancestral property. From among the twelve types of sons the Aurasa gets precedence. The categories of sonship are: 1.Aurasa; 2.Putrikaputra; 3.Kshetraja; 4.Gudhaja; 5.Apaviddha; 6. Kanina; 7.Sahoda; 8.Paunarbhava; 9. Datta; 10. Upagata;11. Ḳṛtaka; 12 Krita. The apportioning of shares in a partition in inheritance there is an elaborate procedure settling questions of seniority in age and status derived from the circumstance of marriage of the parents, premarital Varna of the respective parent (3.6.21). Though Kautilya has not said in so many words but it would be logical to assume inclusion of daughters in the various categories of sons stated by Kautilya because it is unthinkable that only sons were born in the situations described by him for the purpose of sonships. Lest this piece should turn into a listless catalogue let me conclude by saying that Kautilya had placed himself in the role of a social and political thinker committed to the establishment and consolidation of the imperial Mauryan state. In the process he had to deal with heterogeneous social norms and practices, disparate political arrangements with cultural and ethnic diversities. For bringing such a spectrum administratively under one umbrella he had to do lot of social engineering and political wire pulling. With regard to his relevance in our times one can only say that the nature of human beings remains the same. States behave the same way as they always have done. His details on battle formations and code of penalties may sound out moded and simply having historical interest. But he is as topical as any modern expert when he discusses issues of economy, just administration, interstate relations, intelligence gathering and espionage. We can learn a lot from him.

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