The
engagement made by the kinsmen of a girl is, no doubt, binding and
sacred. But the engagement that is entered into by the wedder and wedded,
with the aid of Mantras, is very much more so (for it is this engagement
that really creates the relationship of husband and wife). According to
the dictates of the scriptures, the husband should regard his wife as an
acquisition due to his own acts of a previous life or to what has been
ordained by God. One, therefore, incurs no reproach by accepting for wife
a girl that had been promised to another by her kinsmen or for whom dower
had been accepted by them from another.'
"Yudhishthira said, 'When after the receipt of dower for a girl, the
girl's sire sees a more eligible person present himself for her
hand,--one, that is who is endued with the aggregate of Three in
judicious proportions, does the girl's sire incur reproach by rejecting
the person from whom dower had been received in favour of him that is
more eligible? In such a case either alternative seems to be fraught with
fault, for to discard the person to whom the girl has been promised can
never be honourable, while to reject the person that is more eligible can
never be good (considering the solemn obligation there is of bestowing
one's daughter on the most eligible person).
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