The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c6.22

c6.22

It will be thus seen that if there are passages in later literature showing that the birth of a daughter was unwelcome, the reason was not so much the hatred of her sex as the all-engrossing anxiety to see that she was well placed in life and enabled to lead it in comfort and happiness. It has further to be pointed out that the prevailing view that the daughter is less desirable than the son, though popular, was not accepted by all social thinkers. There were some among them who realised that it was causing great harm to society and felt that it ought to be counteracted. They therefore championed the daughter's cause and pointed out that parricides have been a monopoly of the male sex; no father is ever known to have been killed by a daughter either to history or to legend. There are cases on record where daughters like Kuntī³ and Lopāmudrā¹ have saved their parents from dire calamities. In marriage it is the daughter, and not the son, who enables the father to get the great merit of *pṛithvī-dāna* or the gift of the earth. She is thus really better than the son. One should not be, therefore, elated by the birth of a son and depressed by the advent of a daughter (*Kathāsaritsāgara*, 28, 47 ff.). There can be no doubt that these arguments were definitely advanced to counteract the harm that was done by the prevailing tendency to deprecate the birth of a daughter. Owing, however, to the circumstances above described, they did not carry the day.