Critiques of the Manusmriti often begin with its treatment of social hierarchy, especially the codification of a rigid caste order. The text is seen as upholding a birth-based varṇa system that grants Brahmins religious and social privilege while consigning Śūdras and those outside the caste structure to a subordinate position. Access to Vedic learning and many religious practices is restricted, and certain occupations and rights are reserved for specific castes. The legal framework it presents prescribes different punishments for the same offense depending on caste, with milder penalties for higher castes and harsher, sometimes degrading, punishments for lower castes. This has been viewed as legitimizing systemic discrimination, social segregation, and a lack of mobility between groups.

A second major line of criticism concerns gender. Manusmriti is frequently read as subordinating women to male authority throughout their lives, placing them under the guardianship of father, husband, and then son. It restricts women’s rights in property and inheritance, limits their participation in religious ceremonies, and often portrays them as requiring control rather than autonomy. Some verses have been interpreted as characterizing women as morally or intellectually inferior, which has been used to justify limiting their education, freedom of movement, and choice in marriage and sexuality. The punishments prescribed for women’s transgressions are sometimes described as harsh, especially when contrasted with comparatively lenient treatment of men.

The text is also criticized for the severity and inequality of its penal code more generally. It prescribes corporal and even mutilating punishments, as well as the death penalty, for various offenses, with penalties calibrated not only to the act but to the offender’s social status. Such provisions are seen as endorsing cruelty toward certain social groups and embedding legal inequality into the very structure of dharma. This legal and social rigidity, with its emphasis on occupational determinism by birth and strict boundaries between communities, is viewed as creating formidable barriers to social transformation.

From a broader ethical and philosophical standpoint, many critics argue that the norms of Manusmriti are bound to a particular historical context and cannot serve as a universal guide for justice and morality. Its prescriptions are often judged incompatible with ideals of equality before the law, human rights, and gender justice, and thus at odds with more egalitarian visions of spiritual life. Scholars have also pointed to internal inconsistencies and possible interpolations, raising questions about textual authenticity and coherence. These concerns have led numerous thinkers and reformers to treat Manusmriti not as a timeless, binding authority, but as a historically conditioned document whose more problematic elements invite both critical scrutiny and moral distancing.