Sex, Marriage and Family in World Religions (49 page)

Ascetic Reformism, (500–200 bce), Upanisads,
gr
.
hya
and
dharma
su
.
tra
s, Buddhist texts

Classical Hinduism (200 bce–1100 ce), epics, collections of stories (
puran
.
a
s) treatises on poetry, dance, politics,
dharma,
court literatures, commentaries

Sectarian Hinduism, (1100–1850 ce), hagiographies, commentaries, digests, sectarian theologies

Modern Hinduism, (from 1850), reform movements, vernacular religious literatures, modern media, religious nationalism, diaspora traditions

In the light of these above-mentioned challenges and the extraordinarily long period of accumulation of religious tradition, it is useful to get a sense of some 228

p a u l b . c o u r t r i g h t

of the enduring orientations that we might call religious that distinguish Hinduism from other religious and nonreligious worldviews. Rather than look at Hinduism chronologically, it is more useful to think about it thematically.

Several enduring themes may be seen as constituting a “core” set of attitudes, practices, and values that give Hinduism its distinctive identity: 1. A
sense of
connection
to and obligation to one’s ancestors from whom one has descended, the deities who oversee and protect one’s life, and descendents who follow after.

This set of three connections serves to locate Hindus within a network that extends horizontally backward and forward in time and vertically between earth and the upper world of the deities and the lower world of the demons. 2. A basic
belief in or orientation toward
the general notion that one’s embodied form and situation in the world is the result of actions performed in the past of one’s present or previous life, one’s
karma
—action—and that all the actions of all beings are woven together into a flowing web, called
samsa¯ra
—that which moves along together. 3. A set of
ritual practices
that may include ascetically oriented mental-physical exercises, yoga, forms of devotion to one or several deities ranging from worship in the forms of images, fasting, prayer, devotional singing, pilgrimages to sacred places, and participating in festivals celebrating episodes in the stories of deities. 4. Veneration of particular texts, stories, or persons who embody the core values of the tradition. 5. A set of social relationships based on kinship, ritual purity, and occupation,
ja¯ti
or caste, which locates persons in an ideal hierarchical arrangement with priests and scholars at the top and descending through political leadership groups, merchants and culti-vators, and laborers at the bottom. 6. A view that one’s life moves through a series of ideal life stages called
a¯sŕama
s: childhood, studentship, householder, retiree, and ascetic. 7. Related to the life stages are a set of goals or orientations
(purus
.
a¯rtha)
toward life, each of which is appropriate in its own context: pleasure
(ka¯ma),
achievement
(artha),
virtue
(dharma),
and release from worldly attachments
(moks
.
a)
. A general orientation toward asceticism and release from attachment to the ordinary world,
moks
.
a,
is seen as a desirable goal even if not attainable in one’s present lifetime.

These themes may be gathered up into a framework called
dharma,
a term that, among its many meanings, includes the notion of holding together.

Dharma
includes duties, practices, and attitudes appropriate to one’s life circumstances. While there are many virtues that have general application, such as compassion, noninjury, truthfulness, and generosity,
dharma
is not a fixed set of rules or universal commandments but guidelines that give instruction and direction to one’s life. Stage of life, social position, occupation, and gender shape what
dharma
is appropriate at a particular moment. For example, the
dharma
of a warrior is different than the
dharma
of an ascetic. The Hindu moral life is context specific: doing the right thing requires a clear wisdom of the situation in which it takes place.

At the most encompassing level the Hindu universe is one of perpetual
Hinduism
229

change and renewal. Vast cycles of time provide the context for matter and consciousness to pass through many variant forms. At the human level each individual appears in the world in a body—bones, muscles, and social identity from the father; soft organs and blood from the mother, according to ancient medical texts—and a set of tendencies or dispositions that have been passed down from actions undertaken in previous forms
(karma)
. At the core of the human situation is the desire or attachment to sensations, objects, relationships, and life itself.

In part because of this vast time frame and the notion of multiple life forms that take place according to
karma,
there emerged from at least the second epoch a split vision between embracing the world of sex, marriage, and family or renouncing the world in favor of nonattachment or asceticism. This split is reflected in the formation of the Buddhist and Jain traditions as well. Classical Hindu texts attempt to reconcile these alternatives by placing renunciation as a sequel to the world of the household rather than as alternative to it. A complex relationship of interdependence arose between those who embraced the world and those who renounced it. The householder provides food and veneration to the ascetic and the ascetic provides a perspective on the world from its margins.

If life in the world of body and society is driven by desire and action as its inevitable condition, then which actions are most conducive to well-being in the immediate context and liberation later on? It is in response to this question that we might begin to look for Hindu notions about family, marriage, and sex.

Actions that are most transformative and enduring are those directed away from selfish satisfactions. The enduring core model for these is the sacrifice (Sanskrit:
yajn˜a;
Hindi:
yagya
), offerings into the sacred fire to the gods attended by perfected speech
(mantra)
. As the fire transforms and perfects the gifts of food and transmits them to the gods, the union of male and female in marriage transforms them and those around them. When it comes to question of sex, marriage, and the family in the Hindu context, it would be more appropriate to reverse the order. Family, its continuity and well-being, is the most encompassing framework, then marriage as the primary relationship that makes family possible, and, finally, sex as the embodied difference between human beings as male and female that finds physical pleasure, companionship, and duration in the context of family and society. As a religiously informed orientation to life’s actions and obligations,
dharma
gives guidelines to how husbands, wives, children, and parents should conduct themselves. Many of the selections from sources included here advise their audiences on the roles proper for various situations and consider some of the complexities and ambiguities that arise in living according to their discipline.

From a very early period in the tradition marriage has been understood as the foundational transformative event, called a
sam
.
ska¯ra,
literally, a perfection or completion. Through the ritual of marriage the separate persons of husband and wife become merged together, indissolubly. The wife becomes the “half-230

p a u l b . c o u r t r i g h t

body”
(ardhana¯rı¯s´vara)
of the husband. She is given by her father, through the intermediary of the priest, to her husband. She becomes part of his lineage, lives in his home, and, ideally, provides a son for his (and now her) lineage. In the context of India’s agricultural traditions, the wife is often compared to the field and the husband to the seed, with sexual procreation analogous to the plow and the furrow. It is the seed, the male’s contribution, that determines the offspring.

Deeply embedded in Hindu notions of marriage is a disposition toward protection. It is the husband’s obligation to protect his wife from external pred-ators and temptations and to invest in a relationship that will sustain her commitment to him and his world. At the same time, it is the obligation of the wife to protect her husband by feeding, caring for him, and investing in a relationship that will sustain his commitment. In the context of family lineages and social identity passed through males, the female’s capacities and powers in shaping marriage are often more difficult for outsiders to see. Traditionally, the outer world of field, commerce, sacrifice, and battle has been the locale of men; the inner world of the home, food, children, and health has been the province of women.

Given these longitudinal concerns of family lineage, the process of marriage in the Hindu tradition has had an extraordinary continuity. Unlike marriage patterns in modern industrialized societies in which husbands and wives find each other in a marketplace of possibilities, most Hindus have followed highly systematic patterns of locating suitable marriage partners. While individual love and attraction are worthwhile, one of the goals of life, they are subordinate to the larger concerns of the family and lineage. Therefore, when children reach marriageable age, or even before in premodern India, the parents of the bride and groom have the obligation to arrange the marriage on behalf of the family, a family that includes ancestors long deceased and descendants yet unborn.

The chief criterion for such a selection is compatibility or coherence. That is, the husband and wife need to be from similar backgrounds so far as caste and community are concerned, but they need to be from sufficiently different lineages so as to avoid incest. The definition of how close is too close varies to some extent from north to south. In south India cross-cousin (for example, a son marries a mother’s brother’s daughter) is a preferred practice. In the north such unions have been considered too close.

The process of locating the optimal mate has generally been initiated by the bride’s family. A daughter is often seen as a visitor in her natal family, for she will one day be offered as a “gift” to the husband’s family, just as food is offered to the gods in sacrifice. A son, on the other hand, remains in his natal family, accepting the gift of the wife with the obligation to protect or guard her, enabling himself to prosper through progeny, and enabling her to care for him and their lineage together. This is the basic logic of the so-called arranged marriage tradition.

Hinduism
231

s e l e c t i o n o f t e x t s

The textual sources for appreciating family, marriage, and sex in Hinduism may be found in many places, and any selection will be arbitrary to some extent. At the core of Hinduism as a religion is ritual. It is through the complex sequences of ceremonial life that the Hindu tradition has most densely and enduringly articulated its understandings of marriage. Hence the sources to which we turn are centered around the wedding ritual as the context for human transformation or completion (sam

. ska¯ra).

d o c u m e n t 4 – 1 : r i g v e d a 1 0 . 8 5

Beginning with a hymn from the ancient Vedas, from the second epoch and earliest textual tradition, a collection of ritual chants much venerated by many Hindus, we see that human marriage is patterned after divine marriage. The daughter of the sun god, Su¯rya, and the moon, Soma, form the divine model, just as the sun and moon interact in the world to bring day and night. Hence society and cosmology are linked through ceremony. This Vedic marriage hymn has been recited, in full or in part, in wedding ceremonies for centuries, down to the present day.

d o c u m e n t 4 – 2 : a s

´ v a l a

¯ y a n a g r

. hya su¯tra

Moving forward chronologically, the next selection is drawn from ritual man-uals used by priests in conducting marriage ceremonies, the
gr
.
hya su¯tra
s, and gives a general idea of the process of transformation that takes place in marriage.

d o c u m e n t s 4 – 3 a n d 4 – 4 : m a n u a n d t h e k a ¯ m a s u

¯ t r a

The next two selections shift the focus from ritual to general advice on how husbands and wives should conduct themselves in relation to one another and to the larger family and social systems in which they live. The
Laws of Manu
and the
Ka¯masu¯tra,
both from the fourth epic of classical Hinduism, provide two windows into how Hindus who lived according to the traditions taught by the Brahmin elite were advised to conduct themselves.
Manu
takes a more conservative position with respect to marital behaviors.

d o c u m e n t s 4 – 5 a n d 4 – 6 : n a r r a t i v e t r a d i t i o n s o f t h e p u r a

¯ n

. as

From the genre of the teacher’s advice the next two selections focus on stories having to do with marriage, both also from the classical period. As mentioned earlier, human marriage is modeled after divine marriage. The story of the marriage of Síva and Pa¯rvatı¯ both resembles and differs from human practices.

Síva is, after all, the paradigmatic ascetic who remains outside the realm of 232

p a u l b . c o u r t r i g h t

family. Yet, in this story, he enters the matrimonial world with full enthusiasm.

The second story presents a complex telling of the foolishness of kings and wisdom of Brahmins with respect to marriage. The story also provides a framework for teachings that connect with some of the themes addressed in
Manu
as well.

d o c u m e n t 4 – 7 : a c o n t e m p o r a r y m a r r i a g e c e r e m o n y The next selection comes from a text, written by a Hindu living in the United States, designed for English-reading Hindus in middle-class India and abroad.

Drawing upon widely followed practices among high-caste Hindus, the author provides extensive instructions on how the wedding arrangements should be conducted, how participants should comport themselves, and what sacred texts are to be recited by the priest and the bride and groom. This contemporary text draws extensively upon traditions that go back very far in Hindu history, including the marriage hymn, or part of it, that began the selections.