Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c12.10

v2.c12.10

iv, 2.17. No friend is like her; she is the best herb of healing for him that suffers (iii, 61.29, 30). In this meaning likewise, not only in the erotic or culinary, she belongs to the care of the body (çarīrayātrākṛiti, xiii, 145.13). An abundance of earthly goods, lasting health, and a beloved sweet-spoken wife, and an obedient son, and knowledge that fulfils its end¹—these are the six blessings of the world of mankind (v, 33.82).² In the good wife the three goals of life, which otherwise are endlessly at feud, are at one together (iii, 313.102); on the wife, indeed, this trinity depends, as, too, dutiful service, the propagation of the family, the good (dharma) of the forefathers and of the self (of the man, xiv, 90.47, 48), which is felt in the world beyond. The good wife is not only joy and peace, but house and home, too. Thus the anxious bird-husband whose wife does not come home in the evening calls out (xii, 144.3 ff.): “There was a heavy rain with strong wind, and my loved one does not come. Why is it that she does not yet come back? I wonder if it is well with my darling in the forest. Without the wife the house of one dwelling in it is utterly empty, even if it swarms all over with sons, grandsons, daughters-in-law,³ and servants. It is not the house that is called house, it is the mistress that is the house; but a house without the mistress is the same as the lonely forest. If this darling of mine with the round eye-margins, the lovely body, and the sweet voice does not now come, then I have nothing left in life. She, the steadfast in virtue, who eats not before I have eaten, bathes not before I have bathed, stands not unless I stand, lies to rest only when I lie, she is not glad if I am not glad, she frets if I am fretting; if I am away on a journey, then her face is mournful, and if I am angered, then she speaks sweet words. True to her husband, devoted to her husband as to her one refuge, finding her delight in that which is dear and wholesome for the husband—he who has a wife such as this, that man is blessed