It has been already remarked that the hymns of the Rigveda speak of more than one wife among the princes of the Aryas. In one of these poems we find that Svanaya, who reigned on the bank of the Indus (p. 34), gave his ten daughters in marriage to the minstrel Kakshivat. But in the hymns of burial we hear of one wife only. In the Epos, Daçaratha, king of Ayodhya, has three wives, Pandu has two, and Vijitravirya has also two. In Manu's law also, as the rules already quoted show (p. 245), husbands are allowed to marry more than one wife. Still, not to mention the fact that this was only possible for men of fortune, the book states very distinctly that one only is the proper legitimate wife, that she alone can offer the sacrifice of the house with her husband; more plainly still does the law require that the king shall marry a wife from his own caste; his other wives are merely concubines.[331] The ritual observed at marriage recognises one wife only. If monogamy is not so strictly insisted on in the law, the reason is that the attempted removal of connubium between the three upper orders was made more possible by allowing several wives; for in this way it became more possible to insist that the first or legitimate wife, at any rate, should be taken from a similar caste, even by those whose obedience could not otherwise be gained. But the chief reason was that a son must necessarily be born to the father to offer libations for the dead to him. If the legitimate wife was barren, or brought forth daughters only, the defect must be remedied by a second wife. Even now, Hindoo wives, in a similar case, are urgent with their husbands to associate a second wife with them, in order that they may not die without male issue. How strongly the necessity was felt in ancient times is shown by an indication of the Rigveda, where the childless widow summons her brother-in-law to her bed,[332] and by the narrative in the Epos of the widows of the king who died without a son, for whom children are raised up by a relation, and these children pass for the issue of the dead king (p. 85, 101). The law shows that such a custom did exist, and is not a poetic invention. It permits a son to be begotten by the brother of the husband, or the nearest of kin after him; in any case by a man of the same race (_gotra_), even in the lifetime of the husband with his consent. After the death of the husband this can be done by his younger brother, but at all times it must be without carnal desire and only in the sacred wish to raise up a male descendant for his relation. When a son is born any further commerce is forbidden under pain of losing caste. It is remarked, however, that learned Brahmans disapproved of this custom. It might be omitted when there was a daughter's son in existence, who could offer the funeral cakes for his maternal grandfather; the younger son of another father could also be adopted, but he must be entirely separated from his own family. At present the