4. Modernising tendencies.
Again Dayānand enunciated a very peculiar doctrine on Niyoga or the custom of childless women, either married or widows, resorting to men other than their husbands for obtaining an heir. This is permitted under certain circumstances by the Hindu lawbooks. Dayānand laid down that a Hindu widow might resort in succession to five men until she had borne each of them two children, and a married woman might do the same with the consent of her husband, or without his consent if he had been absent from home for a certain number of years, varying according to the purpose for which he was absent.[6] Dayānand held that this rule would have beneficial results. Those who could restrain their impulses would still be considered as following the best way; but for the majority who could not do so, the authorised method and degree of intimacy laid down by him would prevent such evils as prostitution, connubial unfaithfulness, and the secret liaisons of widows, resulting in practices like abortion. The prevalence of such a custom would, however, certainly do more to injure social and family life than all the evils which it was designed to prevent, and it is not surprising to find that the Samāj does not now consider Niyoga an essential doctrine; instead of this they are trying in face of much opposition to introduce the natural and proper custom of the remarriage of widows. The principal rite of the Samāj is the old Hom sacrifice of burning clarified butter, grain, and various fragrant gums and spices on the sacred fire, with the repetition of Sanskrit texts. They now explain this by saying that it is a sanitary measure, designed to purify the air.
The Samāj does not believe in any literal heaven and hell, but considers these as figurative expressions of the state of the soul, whether in this life or the life to come. The Aryas therefore do not perform the shrādhh ceremony nor offer oblations to the dead, and in abolishing these they reduce enormously the power and influence of the priesthood.