प्राचीन भारत में शिक्षा (डॉ. ए.एस. अल्तेकर - गुरुकुल एवं बौद्ध विहार शिक्षण इतिहास)

214 EDUCATION IN ANCIENT INDIA [Ch.
perfom Vedic sacrifices. The wife's association with
the husband in the family sacrifices became a formal
matter and there were some theologians like Aitiśāyana
who were opposed even to this formal participation.
(P.M., VI. 1. 2. 2.)
Why Vedic Education was prohibited to Women :
The causes of the prohibition of the Vedic education
to women during this later period have nowhere been
specifically stated ; they can only be inferred. When
Vedic literature came to be regarded as revealed,
it was insisted that it should be very meticulously and
accurately committed to memory. The Vedic course
also became a lengthy one, requiring a long period
of study, and could not be finished till about the age
of 24. The marriages of girls, as a rule, were never
postponed to this advanced age even during the Vedic
period. Usually they took place at about the age of
16 or 17. Girls in well-to-do families therefore could
get only about six or seven years for their Vedic
studies ; they could not therefore carry them out with
that exactitude and thoroughness which was insisted
upon by the age. In poor families, the exigencies
of the household work must have resulted in only
very little time being available for Vedic studies after
the Upanayana. Girls in such families were often
unable to recite even the formulæ in the marriage
ritual prescribed for the bride ; they had to be recited
by the priest or the bridegroom (Go. G. S., II. 1. 21. ;
Jai G. S., I. 20). Dilettante Vedic studies were
regarded as not only useless, but also dangerous ;
even the slightest mistake in the recitation of the
Vedic hymns was regarded as very disastrous in its
consequences. It was therefore probably felt that
since women could not study the Vedic literature in