wiks and preceptors and disciples and
Upadhyayas present at the marriage all become liable to expiation if the
girl bestow her hand upon a person other than he whom she had promised to
wed. Some are of opinion that no expiation is necessary for such conduct.
Manu does not applaud the practice of a girl living with a person whom
she does not like.[283] Living as wife with a person whom she does not
like, leads to disgrace and sin. No one incurs much sin in any of these
cases that follow. In forcibly abducting for marriage a girl that is
bestowed upon the abductor by the girl's kinsmen, with due rites, as also
a girl for whom dower has been paid and accepted, there is no great sin.
Upon the girl's kinsmen having expressed their consent, Mantras and Homa
should be resorted to. Such Mantras truly accomplish their purpose.
Mantras and Homa recited and performed in the case of a girl that has not
been bestowed by her kinsmen, do not accomplish their purpose. 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). I ask, how should the sire
conduct himself so that he might be said to do that which is beneficial?
To us, of all duties this seems to demand the utmost measure of
deliberation. We are desirous of