Why did Krishna marry his cousins?

 Namaskar

Among the bunch of false allegations, lies a case that Krishna married his own cousin portraying him as quite controversial figure. There's always a reason and explanation behind every misconception. Our team today resolves to refute this claim and clear the misinterpretation.

First of all we must understand the meaning of 'Gotra'.

In Hinduism, Gotra can be defined as clan. Gotra and the Gotra members are mostly blood related. A person of another Gotra cannot enter a particular Gotra under most circumstances. Thus, cousins belonging to same Gotra are family and any kind of matrimonial relationship between people of same Gotra is not acceptable. 

Gotra is always defined with respect of father's linkage. Hence children are always awarded with their father's gotra disregarding the mother's gotra.

Now let's stress about the main part

1. KRISHNA MARRIAGE WITH MITRAVRINDA

Since we know that, Krishna belonged to Yaduvansh, let's analyse the yaduvanshi gotras

Let's focus on the gotras of Krishna and Mitravrinda-

As we know, Krishna belonged to Vrishni clan

Mitravrinda was the daughter of Maharaja Jayasen and hence was awarded with Avanti clan. Since, their gotras were different, it was actually legal for Krishna and Mitravrinda to get engaged.

The story goes like, Mitravrinda brothers had set the marriage of Mitravrinda somewhere else but Mitravrinda wanted to marry lord Krishna. During the Swyamvar(swayam+Var = own + husband= to choose husband on her own) chose Krishna as her husband(var) as she loved Krishna. 

2.KRISHNA MARRIAGE WITH BHADRA

The same logic of gotra applies here.

Bhadra was born to Dhristaketu(son of Shishupal) and belonged to Chhedi clan.

Shishupal was the son of Damaghosha(king of Chedi clan) and Shrutasharava(sister of Vasudev). And Vasudev was the non-biological father of Krishna. Hence , Bhadra was long distance cousin of Krishna. And since they didn't belong to same gotra, they could get married.

Bhadra just as Mitravrinda loved Krishna and wanted to marry him. But unlike the case of Mitravrinda, Bhadra's brothers themselves arranged her marriage with Krishna after her and her father's approval. 

In essence, back then(even now at many places), same gotra marriages are absolutely unacceptable. Thus, people not belonging to same gotra can get married with their consent.

Hope your misconceptions are al cleared.

Feel free to ask your doubts in comment section.

    

                                 Team

                                        Vedic Veracity