Yudhishthira said If a person, after having given dower for a maiden, goes away, how should the maiden's father or other kinsmen who can bestow her, act? Do tell me this, O grandfather?

Bhishma said Such a maiden, if she be the daughter of a sonless and rich father, should be maintained by the father. Indeed, if the father does not return the dower to the kinsmen of the giver, the maiden should be considered as belonging to the giver of the dower.

She may even raise children for the giver by any of those means that are laid down in the scriptures. No person, however, can marry her according to due rites.

Commanded by her father, the princess Savitri had in days of old chosen a husband and united herself with him. This act of hers is praised by some; but others, conversant with the scriptures, condemn it'.

Others who are righteous have not acted thus. Others maintain that the conduct of the righteous should ever be considered as the foremost evidence of duty or morality.

Upon this subject, Sukratu, the grand son of the great Janaka, the king of the Videhas, has declared the following opinion.

There is the wellknown injunction of the scriptures that women can enjoy freedom at any period of their life. If this were not the path of the virtuous, how could this scriptural saying exist? As regards the pious, therefore, how can there be any question or doubt about it? How can people condemn that saying by choosing to conduct themselves otherwise?

The impious violation of eternal practice is considered as the practice of the Asuras. We never hear of such practice in the conduct of the ancients.

The relationship of husband and wife is very subtile. It is different from the natural relationship of male and female which consists only in the desire for sexual intercourse. This also was said by ihe king of Janaka's race.

Yudhishthira said Under what authority is the property of men inherited (by others when they happen to have daughters)? As for her father the daughter should be considered the same as the son.

Bhishma said The son is even as one's own self, and the daughter is like the son. How, therefore, can another take the riches when one lives in his ownself in the form of his daughter?

Whatever is the own property of the mother, is due to the maiden daughter. If the maternal grandfather happens to die without leaving sons, the daughter's son should inherit it.

The daughter's son offers funeral cakes to his own father and the father of his mother. Hence, for the ends of justice, there is no difference between the son and their daughte son.

When a person has got only a daughter and she has been invested by him with the position of a son, if he then happens to have a son, such son shares the inheritance with the daughter. When, again, a person has got a daughter and she has been invested by him with the position of a son, if he then happens to take a son by adoption or purchase, then the daughter is considered superior to such son.

In the following case I do not see any reason why the daughter's son should be considered as the proper heir. The case is that of the daughter who has been sold by her father. The sons born of a daughter who has been sold by her sire for actual price, belong exclusively to their father. Such sons can never belong, even as daughter's sons, to their maternal grandfather on account of his having sold their mother for price and lost all his rights in or to her by that deed.

Such sons, again, become full of malice, impious in conduct, the misappropriators of other people's riches, and full of deceit and cunning. Having originated from that sinful form of marriage called Asura, the offspring becomes wicked in conduct.

Persons acquainted with ancient history, conversant with duties, devoted to the scriptures and firm in maintaining the restrictions therein laid down, recite in this connection some verses sung in days of yore by Yama.

That man who acquires riches by selling his own son, or who bestows his daughter after accepting a dower for his own livelihood, has to sink in seven dreadful hells one after another, known by the name of Kalas. There that wretch has to feed upon sweat and urine and stools during that period.

In that form of marriage which is called Arsha, the person who marries has to give a bull and a cow and the father of the maiden accepts the gift. Some characterise this gift as a dower (or price), while some are of opinion that it should not be considered in that light. The true opinion, however, is that a gift for such a purpose, be it of small value or large, should, O king, be considered as dower or price, and the bestowal of the daughter under such circumstances should be considered as a sale.

Despite the fact of its having been practised by a few persons it can never be taken as the eternal practice. Other forms of marriage are seen, practiced by men, such as marrying girls after carrying them away by force from amidst their kinsmen.

Those persons who have sexual intercourse with a maiden, by force are considered as perpetrators of sin. They have to sink in darkest hell.

Even a human being who is not a relation of blood should not be sold. What need then be said of one's own child? With the riches that is acquired by doing sinful deeds, no meritorious deed can be performed.