to be Krishna's spouse and it is only on account of a curse that she takes
human form as a cowgirl and comes to live in Brindaban. Radha herself does
not marry Ayana the cowherd--his wedding being only with her shadow.
Thirdly, Krishna comes to Brindaban and goes through a secret marriage
with her. Their love-making is, therefore, no longer adulterous but
strictly conjugal. It is not perhaps surprising that the _Brahma Vaivarta
Purana_ failed to capture the Indian imagination and indeed is nowadays
hardly ever heard of. It is of interest mainly on account of the prolific
information given about Radha, the fact that it sets her firmly in the
centre, dethroning the hapless Rukmini, and its baroque descriptions of
sexual union.


Note 17, p. 73.

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a parallel situation seems to
have arisen in feudal France and Germany where local love-poetry also
treated adultery as a _sine qua non_ of romance.

'Two things prevented the men of that age from connecting their ideal of
romantic and passionate love with marriage. The first is, of course, the
actual practice of feudal society. Marriages had nothing to do with love
and no 'nonsense' about marriage was tolerated. All marriages were matches
of interest and, worse still, of an interest that was continually
changing. When the alliance which had answered would answer no longer, the
husband's object was to get rid of the lady as quickly as possible.
Marriages were frequently dissolved. The same woman who was the lady and
'the dearest dread' of her vassals was often little better than a piece of
property to her husband. He was master in his own house. So far from being
a natural channel for the new kind of love, marriage was rather the drab