Verse 9.9

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:

यादृशं भजते हि स्त्री सुतं सूते तथाविधम् ।
तस्मात् प्रजाविशुद्ध्यर्थं स्त्रियं रक्षेत् प्रयत्नतः ॥ ९ ॥

yādṛśaṃ bhajate hi strī sutaṃ sūte tathāvidham |
tasmāt prajāviśuddhyarthaṃ striyaṃ rakṣet prayatnataḥ || 9 ||

As the man to whom the woman clings, so the offspring that she brings forth; hence for the sake of the purity of the offspring one should carefully guard the woman.—(9).

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

The present text proceeds to explain what has been said in verse 7.

One should not entertain the idea that what is meant is—either (1) that ‘the woman brings forth a child of the same caste as that of the other man to whom she clings’, or (2) that ‘the child born resembles that man in his qualities’; because the child born of a Śūdra is a caṇḍāla’ and so forth. Even in the case of the parties belonging to the same caste, the caste of the child is not the same as that of the father; since it has been declared that ‘the child should be born of a woman of untouched womb’. If again, the child were to resemble the father in qualities, it would mean that the text permits the woman whose husband is poor and of bad character to have recourse to another man possessed of better qualities.

If, on the other hand, the text is taken as purely declamatory, the sense of the assertion, ‘as the man so the child’ comes to be that ‘the child born is not endowed with the qualities of the family’.—(9).

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

This verse is quoted in Vivādaratnākara (p. 414);—and in Vīramitrodaya (Vyavahāra, 159a).

 

Comparative notes by various authors

Yājñavalkya (1.81).—‘It has been ordained that women should be protected.’

Śaṅkha-Likhita (Vivādaratnākara, p. 414).—‘The woman brings forth a son partaking of the character of that man on whom she has her affections fixed during her period.’