Ancient Indian Education: An Inquiry into its Origin, Development, and Ideals c5.113

c5.113

There are many other passages also which show the low esteem in which women were held at the time when these regulations came into being. They were excluded also from the study of the Veda. Early marriage had already become the custom, and the only education a girl received was one which fitted her to fulfil her duties in the household of her husband. ‘Let the husband employ his wife in the collection and expenditure of his wealth, in keeping everything clean, in the fulfilment of religious duties, in the preparation of his food, and in looking after the household utensils.’² The training for this began in her own home under the supervision of her mother, and when she was married and went to live with her husband it would be continued, owing to the Indian custom of the non-separation of the family, by her mother-in-law. The injunction that she should be employed in the collection and expenditure of her husband’s wealth would seem to imply some knowledge of simple accounts, but this did not probably amount to much, and it is often the custom for a woman in India to-day who can neither read nor write to look after her husband’s money. Although shut out from the study of the Vedas and from performing a sacrifice, vow, or fast, apart from her husband, the performance of certain religious duties was specially enjoined for her, and in addition to receiving instruction in the rites and ceremonies in which she was expected to take part a woman would become acquainted with something of the vast heap of mythological stories and folk-lore which have been handed down and accumulated in India from ancient times. This indeed would in most cases be the only literary education she would receive.