Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c13.77

v2.c13.77

² Cp. Winternitz and Caland in the 17th vol. of the Wiener Zeitschr. f. d. Kunde d. Morgenl.; Hertel, Ind. Märchen, p. 48 ff.; 371; and on change of sex note 200 (p. 282 f.) in my book Isoldes Gottesurteil. The view that the woman has greater passion in love and a stronger pleasure in the act of union is not confined to India. There a proverb often heard says that the power of eating in the woman is twice as great as the man’s, her cunning (or : her bashfulness) four times as great, her decision (or : boldness) six times as great, and her impetuosity in love (her delight in love’s pleasures) eight times as great. Garuḍapur., 109.33; Schmidt, Indische Erotik 1, p. 132; Böhtlingk, Indische Sprüche, 412; Kressler, Stimmen ind. Lebensklugheit, p. 153; Benfey, Pantschatantra, i, 49. So too the Chinese hold woman to be more passionate. Gustave Schlegel, “La femme chinoise,” X. Congrès intern. des orient., Sect. v, p. 117. And the Arabs say : Les femmes ont en effet les passions plus violentes que les hommes, parce qu’elles ont l’intelligence plus faible. Basset, “Contes et légendes arabes,” Rev. des tradit. popul., xiv, p. 486, cp. 118. Much more of this kind could be quoted. Konrad von Würzburg is of another opinion, who sings that the man’s love-pangs are twice as cruel as the woman’s (Engelhard, ed. by Haupt, 1932 ff.). But medieval literature does not support him, not even the German. For there too the fair one herself is usually the leader in love, driven on by a violent strength of impulse, when as a rule she is wanting in all shame or bashfulness, and almost always in any reserve. Her hot passion and