The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c8.67

c8.67

Did husbands in ancient India carry out their conjugal duties as devotedly as their spouses? Did they live up to the high ideal laid down for them? Did they make a serious effort to carry out the obligations laid down in marriage vows? It is not easy to answer these questions confidently for the community as a whole. But it has to be admitted that the percentage of those who honoured the marriage vows more by the breach than by the observance was much greater in the case of husbands than it was in the case of wives. Of course we are not to generalise from stray cases of brutal husbands; nor are we to draw hasty conclusions from some caustic popular sayings like ‘One may save oneself even by sacrificing one's wife.’ Such sayings are cynical observations of a few persons with an abnormal mental constitution; they do not reflect the opinion or indicate the practice of the society as a whole. There are several instances to show that such theories were not followed in practice by the average husband. We have, for instance, the story of Bakāsura where the husband refuses to follow the advice of his wife, who persistently implored that she should be sacrificed in order to save the family. In the *Madhyamavyāyoga* of Bhāsa the head of the family is in a similar predicament, but he also does not think of surrendering his wife in order to save himself or his family.