Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c10.t2.1

c10.t2.1

We have already undertaken in a previous passage (p. 164, seq.) to show the position of women in Buddha’s teaching. We saw with what decided antipathy Buddha’s disciples stood aloof from the female sex, and how admission to the Order was conceded to women only with reluctance and under conditions which involved their absolute subjection to the monks. The social law of the Indians also kept woman all her life long in complete dependence. “In childhood,” says an oft-quoted sentence in the Institutes of Manu, “let her be subjected to the will of her father; in adult life to the will of the man who has led her home; to her son’s will, when her husband has died; a woman is not permitted to enjoy independence.” The rules which Buddhist Church-law lays down for the spiritual life of nuns might pass for an amplification of this position of Manu; as the wife is placed under the guardianship of her husband, the mother under the guardianship of her sons, so the Order of nuns* is placed under the guardianship of the Order of monks.