[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915) › v2.c12.4 # Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c12.4 Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c12.4 - **Language:** English ### [v2.c12.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c12.4) there.¹ He that has a wife accomplishes deeds ²; he that has a wife is a householder ; he that has a wife has joy ; he that has a wife is accompanied by happiness. They are the friends that in loneliness speak of love, fathers at the calls of duty, mothers for him that suffers, rest even in the wilds of the forest for the way-wearied wanderer. He that has a wife finds trust ³; therefore the wife is the surest refuge. Even when the husband crosses over into another birth, when he dies, hurries along rough paths alone, the faithful mate follows ever after him. If the wife has died first and gone away, then she awaits her husband, and the good woman follows the husband that has died first (pacçāt sādhvy anugacchati). For this reason it is that a man wishes to marry, that the master may have a wife in this world and the other. The self begotten by the self is by the wise called ‘ son ’.⁴ Therefore let the man look on his wife, the mother of his son, as his own mother. As does the doer of good deeds when he comes into heaven, so does the begetter feel comfort within him when he beholds the son, begotten by him in his wife’s womb, as it were his own countenance in the glass. If the man is burning in sorrows of the soul, and is sick with bodily ills, then does he find comfort by his wife, as he that is tortured with heat does in water. Even the man in the clutches of hot rage will do nothing harsh to women, if he considers that on them depend the pleasures of love, joy, and what is good. As the field on which the self grows up, women are an ever-holy thing ⁵; for what power have even the Ṛishis to produce children without a woman ! ”—Over and over again the wife is called the friend, the friend determined by fate, the best among friends, and so on. So in iii, 313.72, cp. çl. 63–64 ; - [Previous: v2.c12.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c12.3) - [Next: v2.c12.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c12.5) - [Up: v2.c12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c12) ## Linked texts (1) - [Mahābhārata](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.mahabharata.vyasa) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c12.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c12.4) · Pramāṇa