Hindu law criminalized lower-caste men’s sex with high-caste women

Evidence

Brihaspati was a Brahmin law-giver of the sixth or seventh century CE. Brihaspati’s major work, the Brihaspati Smriti, survives only in fragments. It has been published in The Minor Lawbooks (1889), translated by Julius Jolly. Brihaspati is considered the first Hindu law-giver to separate civil law from criminal law, and his views concerning women’s rights are considered liberal. Nonetheless, he confers the death sentence on a man who has a sexual relationship with a ‘high’-caste woman, while merely assigning fines for men who have a sexual relationship with a woman of equal or of ‘lower’ caste. Consent (or the absence of it) on the woman’s part does not alter the severity of the punishment. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1163

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to how caste endogamy is legally enforced — strengthens the reader’s thread on caste as self-sustaining system.
• SHARE: The asymmetry — death vs. fines depending on woman’s caste, and consent being irrelevant — is a pointed detail for anyone writing on caste and sexuality.