It cannot be shewn that the motive leading to what is called sacred prostitution was the same in all countries; in India, for example, it appears to have had very much to do with the desire for children which we have described as common with the easterns; so common was it that the one object of woman's life was marriage and a family. This, and the more rapid development of the female in that part of the world than in others, and the impression that dying childless she would fail to fulfil her mission lies at the basis of the early betrothals and marriages which appear so repulsive and absurd to European ideas. There is a further desire, however, than that of simply having children, especially in India; the desire is for male children, and where these fail, it is common for a man to adopt a son, and in this his motive is a religious one. According to prevalent superstition, it is held that the future beatitude of the Hindu depends upon the performance of his obsequies, and payment of his debts, by a son, as a means of redeeming him from an instant state of suffering after death. The dread is of a place called Put, a place of horror, to which the manes of the childless are supposed to be doomed; there to be tormented with hunger and thirst, for want of those oblations of food, and libations of water, at prescribed periods, which it is the pious and indispensable duty of a son to offer. The "Laws of Manu" (Ch. ix., 138), state:--"A son delivers his father from the hell called Put, he was therefore called puttra (a deliverer from Put) by the Self-existent (Svayambhu) himself." The sage Mandagola is represented as desiring admission to a region of bliss, but repulsed by the guards who watch the abode of progenitors, because he had no male issue. The "Laws of Manu" illustrate this by the special mention of heaven being attained without it as of something extraordinary. Ch. v., 159, "Many thousands of Brahmanas, who were chaste from their youth, have gone to heaven without continuing their race."