Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c20.30.3

v2.c20.30.3

For Bhīshma, the truly noble teacher of law in the Mahābh., acknowledges the matter to be too subtle for him : Yudhishthira, indeed, has already become a slave, he says, and thus without any possessions whatever, but on the other hand the wife stands always under the husband’s sway. But what the bungling interpreter of the law has to leave doubtful, holds no darkness for the eye of the unspoiled mind, nor for the noble heart. “A dice-game (atidyūta, ii, 71.17) carried beyond the bounds of what is right was played here, since ye are disputing about a woman in the gaming-hall ; happiness and well-being will be utterly destroyed for you, O Kurus, for ye are plotting evil deeds ”—shouts Vidura, and this is the feeling not only of the honourable Bhīma, but of almost all those there, as also of the people and the women. According to Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s own account the Brahmans also were “angered when Draupadī was dragged about ” (ii, 81.22 ; see the whole matter in ii, 65 ff.). Now as the woman is herself property, she, of course, in principle cannot own anything. What she acquires belongs to her owner (her father or her husband).¹ The wife is here the same as the slave and the child (i, 82.22 ; ii, 71.1 ; v, 33.64). But that the woman could own private property bestowed on her or inherited, this we have already seen.