Why was polygamy allowed in Vedic culture?

by Chaitanya CharanJune 28, 2013

 

From: Rupak <rupakpanigrahy88@gmail.com>

In vedic texts we come across stories where a king having multiple wives. It was quite common. But other than Draupadi, and (Kunti, Mandodari, Tara in some sense ), finding a lady having multiple husbands is extremely rare. Even these cases were solutions for very rare conditions to be met. But on the other hand a king(man) marrying many wives is not considered as a problem at all. Its taken to be normal. I am not sure if normal people also married many wives as vedas( vedic literatures) mostly contain stories about kings of sages or great brahmanas/ devotees. There is no problem to that as they are not history books but spiritual manuals.

But in modern laws/social understanding a man being close relationship with many women will be considered cheating and vice versa. And also we understand when somebody’s wife is close to any other man that man feels pain and vice versa.

But then in earlier ages polygamy by men was quite normal. So why was this not considered as a sin or is it that men by nature are polygamous or was it just a part of political strategy for kings to marry many wives from different kingdoms even though not correct for each of the queens ? How come vedas miss this important point as they always speak about sins, pious deeds, does , don’ts, spiritual activities all, was(or rather is) this just a normal thing and by mother nature its not a sin or we would understand this by bringing the different ages and different rules theory.

***

About The Author
Chaitanya Charan