Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c15.10

v2.c15.10

Carefully to administer the household is thus the task of the wife. But does she rule, too, in the household circle? “Be mistress over thy father-in-law, be mistress over thy mother-in-law” the bride, indeed, is told in the wedding hymn (Rigveda, x, 85.46), and the same thing is elsewhere also held out to her in prospect. But to a woman and at a wedding one may lie, the Mahābh. says more than once. Whatever of truth may at some time have lain in those anyhow noteworthy verses of the Veda, in the Epic we find it to be the duty of the young housewife, who under Indian conditions usually lives under one roof with her parents-in-law, to be subject to these persons, who even for her husband are worshipful and authoritative. The daughter-in-law is to fear the father-in-law, and a dignified gravity must be the rule between the two (v, 37.5). Her bearing towards him shall be kindly and friendly (v, 30.35). “Since thou art the guru (dignitary) of my guru (that is, of my husband), so art thou to me the god of gods, the over-god of the gods,” says a pious daughter-in-law to the father-in-law (xiv, 90.76). The daughter-in-law, therefore, must not give orders to the servants in the presence of the mother-in-law and the father-in-law (xii, 228.76). Evil-speaking against her mother-in-law is a shameful sin for the wife (xiii, 93.131; 94.38), and she must appear before her only in modest, seemly clothing (xi, 10.14).