A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c6.79

c6.79

sacrifices together with his lawful wife, and as passages of the hymns¹, as well as of the Brâhmaṇas, speak clearly of man and wife as performing sacrifices in common, it was laid down in the Sûtras that the husband or the priest should, at the sacrifice itself, make his wife recite those hymns which were necessary for the ceremony. But although women were thus allowed to participate in the sacrifices of their husbands, they were not initiated, still less were they admitted to the highest knowledge, the knowledge of the Âtman or the Brahman.² Cases like that of Maitrêyî were exceptions, not the rule.