The regulations where women are concerned do not end here. Regarding making love, our text prescribes the following rules:
"From a maiden who makes advances to a man of high caste he (the king) shall not take any fine; but her who courts a (man of) low (varna) let him force to live confined in the house."
"A (man of) low (varna) who seeks a maiden (of) the highest (varna) shall suffer death. He who seeks One of equal (varna) shall pay the nuptial fee if her father desires it" (viii, 315-16).
7. Varna and the Criminal Law.
Let us now turn our attention to inequalities and discriminations in the criminal law. On this matter our text has a good deal to say.
"With whatever limb a person belonging to an out-
"If a protector he should be executed" (xii, 3), Bühler has taken the aphorism to mean, "if the woman has a protector then the Shūdra offender should be executed." I interpret the aphorism differently, I think that Gautama means that if an ārya woman is confided to the care of a Shūdra and the Shūdra abuses his trust then he should be executed. I have taken the word guptā to mean a married woman and aguptā to mean an unmarried woman and have taken the verses viii, 374-385 to mean a discussion on the offenses of fornication and adultery. The word guptā is defined as a married woman who indulges in secret amours in Rasamanjarī, 24 (See the word guptā in Apte's Practical Dictionary). The words guptā and aguptā may also with propriety be taken to mean adulteress and prostitute respectively. I venture a suggestion to explain the corruption of original sense by the commentators, and it may be taken for what it is worth. Most of the commentators wrote their commentaries during the Mohammedan régime, a period during which the purda in Northern India became much more strict.
