‘Women, when enceinte, are honored: they are exempted from paying a toll at a ferry. 93 Manu's, highest veneration for women is, however, embodied in III, 56-57, where he says that the gods dwell only where women are honored and hence they should be taken care of properly. But this represents a period of history much anterior to the time of the Manu-Samhita.

Hence treatise of Manu reflects the transitory period in the history of legal literature, when a clash between the old and the new was going on and the ascetic tendencies of reform movements were bringing to light the unholiness of many of the old laws. With the raising of the standard of morality the demand for more rigorous rules was inevitable, and Mann, though basing his views on the older teachers modifies them.

Owing to the great influence the book commanded in society the later writers who edited it, and preserved it, added to this old stock new modifications. Hence it can concluded that the laws of Manu reflect not only the transitory period, but also the later times to some extent.