Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c20.71.4

v2.c20.71.4

Laughing but at a jest, constant standing by the door, staying long in the privy, or in the groves by the house—these I avoid. I never have a wish for anything unless my husband is there. If my husband goes a journey on some business of the family, then I give up flowers, salve, and rouge, and give myself over to vows of mortification. And what my husband does not drink, and what my husband does not do, and what my husband does not eat—I avoid all these." She then goes on to tell how her husband is her god, how she never offends her mother-in-law in any way, how she superintends all the hundred thousand splendid, skilful slave-women, and all the huge wide-stretched charity of Yudhishṭhira, all those employed by him down to the herdsmen and bird-keepers, as also his revenues and expenditure to the most minute details. She is the first to rise in the house, the last to lie down.¹ "This is the great magic spell which I know, to win the husband's regard. What is pleasing is never won through what is pleasing,² but it is through discomfort that the good wife wins happiness and joy. So soon as thou hearest thy husband coming at the door, stand up and set thyself in the middle of the room; and when thou seest he has come in, be swift to wait respectfully on him with a seat and water for the feet. If a slave-girl has been sent away, thou must rise up thyself and do all. If thy husband says anything before thee, then keep it to thyself, even when it is no secret;