The notion of fatherhood in ancient India was rather radical
The notion of fatherhood in ancient India was rather radicalA king was making an oblation to his forefathers. Three ghosts came to take the offering. The first was of a man who had married his mother but had died childless. The second was of a man who loved his mother and had made her pregnant. And the third was of a king who had raised him as his own son and made him his legal heir. "Who is the true father of the king?" the Vetal asks Vikramaditya.
That such a question is asked by the Vetal to Vikramaditya indicates that the answer is not objective. Some would say that the biological father is the true father; some would say the foster father is the true father; in the Mahabharata, however, priority is given to the legal father the one who married the mother.
That is why the five Pandavas are called the sons of Pandu, even though Pandu did not make either of his wives pregnant. By the mere fact that he was lawfully married to Kunti and Madri, he came to be recognised as the father of Kunti's three and Madri's two sons. In the latter part of the Mahabharata, Krishna identifies Karna as the eldest Pandava even though he was born before Kunti married Pandu. As part of the ancient law of marriage, a man is the father of all children born to his wife, before marriage or after marriage, by him or by any other man.
These myths and legends from ancient and medieval India clearly have their roots in a patriarchal society. It was a society that saw woman as property. Woman was the soil in which man planted his seed. By marrying her, he became owner of the soil, master of her womb. Marriage gave the husband full rights over the 'harvest'. He decided who would 'sow the seed'. He could punish anyone who 'trespassed' into the field.
The husband's right over the 'harvest' survived even after he died. That is how Pandu comes to known as the son of Vichitravirya even though Vichitravirya died long before he was conceived. After the death of his 'official' father, his mother Ambalika was ordered to go to a sage called Vyasa and have a child with him. The son thus conceived became the inheritor of Vichitravirya's throne.
If the Mahabharata is to be believed, at one time, the husband had full rights on the 'harvest' but not on 'sowing the seed'. Marriage did not impose fidelity. This made paternity a social rather than a biological role as indicated by the following story.
During a great sacrifice, many sages visited the hermitage of sage Uddalaka. Uddalaka's son Shvetaketu noticed that his mother was in the arms of one of the guests and that his father was not particularly perturbed by her behavior. "Women, like men, have choices," his father explained. Realising the implications of his father's words, Shvetaketu decreed, "Henceforth, women shall be faithful to their husbands and shall do as their husbands tell them to. Men shall respect chaste wives. Those who fail to do so will incur the sin of abortion."
This story suggests that fidelity was, at one point, not a critical component of marriage. A woman could go to any man she wished. Officially, her children belonged to the man who married her. It is only the post-Shvetaketu era that women were expected to be monogamous. This removed the confusion between the social and the biological father.
Perhaps men were expected to be monogamous too. But when no child was conceived, it was always presumed that the problem was with the wife. That is when the man was allowed to take another wife. When she failed to produce a child, the third wife was brought in before everyone admitted that the problem was with the man. In such scenarios the wife was sent to a sage, a relative or a god as in the case of Vichitravirya and Pandu. This practice was known as 'niyoga'.
Since the biological father had no rights over the child he helped a woman conceive, he was called a 'god', a 'Deva'. In fact, the reason Vyasa is called to make Vichitravirya's wives pregnant is because he has full control over his senses and would not get emotionally attached to the offspring and not make any claims of paternity.
Disclaimer > This column attempts to explain sacred beliefs in the spirit of genuine and respectful curiosity without claiming any authority on the same.
