Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c20.s1.18

v2.c20.s1.18

⁴ *Vishnu*, VIII., 2, p. 48. The illiberal views as regards women expressed even by Śukrāchārya, not to say of writers on morality and poets of the later ages, may perhaps be traced to these dogmatic assertions about the dependence of women. Thus in the *Sukraniti*: "One should not leave his place by making the young wife dependent on herself. Women are the root of evils. Can young females be left with others?" III. ll. 240-1, p. 111. This may be compared with the verse of Vēmana. "Though her husband be Cupid himself, and her home be agreeable, how shall the slippery footed woman change her nature? Though a dog be tamed and reared with milk, will it not still rove from place to place?" *Verses*, II., v. 10, p. 55; see also pp. 56-7, 69, 82. It is not surprising that under the influence of these ideas, the wife was made to walk behind her husband as depicted by Dhūrjati. *Hamsa-vimśati-Kathegalu*, p. 12, see also p. 54.