Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c12.39

v2.c12.39

It is truly not made very easy for the woman of Old India to win for herself the name of a true and seemly wife. That has already been seen from much that has been stated. Here we give a few special passages. “This only is what the good call the oldest law: what the husband says to the wife, whether right or wrong, that she must do exactly; thus do the knowers of the holy knowledge know” (i, 122.27, 28). “This is the highest and everlasting task of the woman in the world, that she do all that is best for her husband, even at the cost of her life” (i, 158.4). “Truth, and the joy of love, and heaven won by excellence, and whatever is wished for is for women dependent on the husband. Menstruation (which is needful for conception) comes from the mother, the seed from the father, the highest god is the husband; through the husband the goal of life for women, made up of the pleasures of love and children, is thus reached” (xiv, 90.50 ff.). “But the husband, be he virtuous or not, is for those women that heed the moral good the visible godhead” (Rām., ii, 62.8). See also MBh., xii, 145.3 ff. Anasūyā says in Rām., ii, 117.22 ff.: “Thy kinsfolk, O Sītā, thou rich in honour, and honour and prosperity thou hast left behind, and followest Rāma banished in the forest. Good fortune be thine! Those women whose husband is dearly loved, whether he live in city or forest, be he good or bad, theirs are the worlds of high happiness. For women of noble character the husband is the highest godhead, although he have a bad character, or live after his lusts, or be bereft of worldly goods.”¹ Thus, too, her lord is more for the wife than her own child. Arjuna’s wife, Citrāṅgadā, whom her hero-husband has made, indeed, with child, but soon left,² believes her lord and her son are dead, and is ready to let the son be lost, but not her husband, and wishes to see him called back to life; “ for this friendship has been made everlasting and imperishable by the creator ” (xiv, 80.15). And in the Rāmāyaṇa (ii, 39.29-30) it is said : “ Without a string there is no lute, without a wheel no chariot, without a husband no woman is happy, even though she have a hundred sons. For what the father gives has bounds, what the brother gives has bounds, what the son gives has bounds; but him that gives the unbounded, the husband, what wife should not honour him ! ” 1