If a man from a subordinate caste makes love to a woman of the highest caste, he must be put to death.īut, some ask, does anyone really read the Manusmriti in India, let alone obey it? The facts show that the spirit of Manu’s laws continue to inform and shape modern society, as well as modern politics in India. The Manusmriti lays down the law that a woman who makes love to a man of a higher caste incurs no punishment a woman who makes love to a man of a “lower” caste than hers must be isolated and kept in confinement.
This obsessive control over women is needed to prevent a breakdown of caste hierarchies and caste apartheid. In fact, Manu encourages us to see this control as “reverence” and “protection” rather than as repression and oppression. It is important to recognise that the harm of the Manusmriti lies, not in the fact that it asks us to treat women as “prostitutes”, but that it asks us to treat women as daughters, wives, mothers who must be tightly controlled by fathers, husbands, sons. Our critique of the Manusmriti should take care to challenge rather than reinforce the notion that the worst thing one can say of a woman is that she is sexually “loose” or a “prostitute”.
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