Note 63 — Chapter VI

Niyoga and the levirate. 8. Whether the customs known as niyoga and the levirate are or are not connected with polyandry has been the subject of much controversy. Mr. McLennan63 asserted that the levirate, that is the practice of marrying the widow of a deceased brother, was derived from polyandry. The niyoga, or the custom of a widow cohabiting with the brother of her deceased husband, seems to be referred to in the Veda.64 Manu65 allows such unions of a widow with a brother-in-law or other relative of the deceased husband to continue only till one or at the most two sons have been begotten, and declares that they must then cease. In the verses which follow he restricts such temporary unions to classes below the twice-born, or (in contradistinction to what proceeds) condemns them altogether. By the law, as stated by Gautama,66 a woman whose husband is dead, and who desires offspring, may bear a son to her brother-in-law. “Let her obtain the permission of her gurus (husband’s relatives under whose protection she lives), and let her have intercourse during the proper season only. On failure of a brother-in-law she may obtain offspring by cohabiting with a sapinda, or sagotra, or samân-pravara, or one who belongs to the same caste. Some declare that she shall cohabit with none but her brother-in-law. She shall not bear more than two sons. The child belongs to him who begot it, except if an agreement to the contrary have been made, and the child begotten at a living husband’s request on his wife belongs to the husband, but if it was begotten by a stranger, it belongs to the latter, or to both the natural father and the husband of the mother, but being reared by the husband belongs to him.”