Question

Which one of the following was not a characteristic of society in Mauryan times?
a. Slavery
b. Rigidity of Caste
c. Prostitution
d. Widow remarriage

Answer 1

Hint: The social structure of Mauryan society was very complex. The two main sources which give us information about the Mauryan empire are Kautilya’s Arthshastra and Megasthenes’s book Indica. Kautilya was the prime minister under Chandragupta Maurya and Megasthenes was a Greek diplomat in the Mauryan court.

Complete answer: -Widow remarriage was not a characteristic of Mauryan society.
-Women were the property of men, upper class women were required to cover their face and follow the purdah system. Even though there are mentions of the Mauryan king having female bodyguards, the status of women was still secondary to men.
-Arthashastra has some mentions of women employment. Women were employed to work in the royal palace but that was mostly as servants in the royal women’s chambers or for the king.
-The social role of women was restricted to being a wife and a mother. A wife was supposed to serve her husband as was his property. Widow remarriage was extremely rare and if under any circumstance it could happen, the woman had to take permission from her father-in-law.

Therefore the correct answer is option (D).

Note: Women were allowed to study and teach the Vedas. There were two kinds of female scholars, the first category were the ones who studied and taught their whole life and never got married, they were called the Brahmavadinis and the other category was Sadyodvahas who studied till they got married.