Sex, Marriage and Family in World Religions (52 page)

[51] No learned father should take a bride-price for his daughter, no matter how small, for a man who, out of greed, exacts a bride-price would be selling his child like a pimp. [52] And those deluded relatives who live off a woman’s property—her carriages, her clothes, and so on—are evil and go to hell. [53]

Some say that the cow and bull (given) during the (wedding) of the sages is a bride-price, but it is not so. No matter how great or small (the price), the sale amounts to prostitution. [54] Girls whose relatives do not take the bride-price for themselves are not prostituted; that (gift) is merely honorific and a mercy to maidens.

[55] Fathers, brothers, husbands, and brothers-in-law who wish for great good fortune should revere these women and adorn them. [56] The deities delight in places where women are revered, but where women are not revered all rites are fruitless. [57] Where the women of the family are miserable, the family is soon destroyed, but it always thrives where the women are not miserable. [58]

Homes that are cursed by women of the family who have not been treated with due reverence are completely destroyed, as if struck down by witchcraft. [59]

Therefore men who wish to prosper should always revere these women with ornaments, clothes, and food at celebrations and festivals.

[60] There is unwavering good fortune in a family where the husband is always satisfied by the wife, and the wife by the husband. [61] If the wife is not radiant she does not stimulate the man; and because the man is unstimulated the making of children does not happen. [62] If the woman is radiant, the whole family is radiant, but if she is not radiant the whole family is not radiant. [63]

Through bad marriages, the neglect of rites, failure to study the Veda, and transgressing against priests, families cease to be families. . . .

[5.147] A girl, a young woman, or even an old woman should not do anything independently, even in (her own) house. [148] In childhood a woman should be under her father’s control, in youth under her husband’s, and when her husband is dead, under her sons’. She should not have independence. [149] A
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woman should not try to separate herself from her father, her husband, or her sons, for her separation from them would make both (her own and her husband’s) families contemptible. [150] She should always be cheerful, and clever at household affairs; she should keep her utensils well polished and not have too free a hand in spending. [151] When her father, or her brother with her father’s permission, gives her to someone, she should obey that man while he is alive and not violate her vow to him when he is dead.

[152] Benedictory verses are recited and a sacrifice to the Lord of Creatures is performed at weddings to make them auspicious, but it is the act of giving away (the bride) that makes (the groom) her master. [153] A husband who performs the transformative ritual (of marriage) with Vedic verses always makes his woman happy, both when she is in her fertile season and when she is not, both here on earth and in the world beyond. [154] A virtuous wife should constantly serve her husband like a god, even if he behaves badly, freely indulges his lust, and is devoid of any good qualities.

[155] Apart (from their husbands), women cannot sacrifice or undertake a vow or fast; it is because a wife obeys her husband that she is exalted in heaven.

[156] A virtuous wife should never do anything displeasing to the husband who took her hand in marriage, when he is alive or dead, if she longs for her husband’s world (after death). [157] When her husband is dead she may fast as much as she likes, (living) on auspicious flowers, roots, and fruits, but she should not even mention the name of another man. [158] She should be long-suffering until death, self-restrained, and chaste, striving (to fulfill) the unsurpassed duty of women who have one husband. [159] Many thousands of priests who were chaste from their youth have gone to heaven without begetting offspring to continue the family.

[160] A virtuous wife who remains chaste when her husband has died goes to heaven just like those chaste men, even if she has no sons. [161] But a woman who violates her (vow to her dead) husband because she is greedy for progeny is the object of reproach here on earth and loses the world beyond. [162] No (legal) progeny are begotten here by another man or in another man’s wife; nor is a second husband ever prescribed for virtuous women. [163] A woman who abandons her own inferior husband and lives with a superior man becomes an object of reproach in this world; she is said to be “previously had by another man.” [164] A woman who is unfaithful to her husband is an object of reproach in this world; (then) she is reborn in the womb of a jackal and is tormented by
t
he diseases born of her evil.

[165] The woman who is not unfaithful to her husband and who restrains her mind, speech, and body reaches her husband’s worlds (after death), and good people call her a virtuous woman. [166] The woman who restrains her mind-and-heart, speech, and body through this behaviour wins the foremost renown here on earth and her husband’s world in the hereafter. [167] A twice-born man who knows the law should bum a wife of the same class who behaves 244

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in this way and dies before him, using the (fire of the) daily fire sacrifice and the sacrificial vessels. [168] When he has given the (sacrificial) fires in the final ritual to the wife who has died before him, he may marry again and kindle the fires again. [169] He must never neglect the five (great) sacrifices, but should take a wife and live in his house, in accordance with this rule, for the second part of his life. . . .

[9.1] I will tell the eternal duties of a man and wife who stay on the path of duty both in union and in separation. [2] Men must make their women dependent day and night, and keep under their own control those who are attached to sensory objects. [3] Her father guards her in childhood, her husband guards her in youth, and her sons guard her in old age. A woman is not fit for independence. [4] A father who does not give her away at the proper time should be blamed, and a husband who does not have sex with her at the proper time should be blamed; and the son who does not guard his mother when her husband is dead should be blamed.

[5] Women should especially be guarded against addictions, even trifling ones, for unguarded (women) would bring sorrow upon both families. [6] Regarding this as the supreme duty of all the classes, husbands, even weak ones, try to guard their wives. [7] For by zealously guarding his wife he guards his own descendants, practices, family, and himself, as well as his own duty. [8]

The husband enters the wife, becomes an embryo, and is born here on earth.

That is why a wife is called a wife
(ja¯ya¯),
because he is born
(ja¯yate)
again in her. [9] The wife brings forth a son who is just like the man she makes love with; that is why he should guard his wife zealously, in order to keep his progeny clean.

[10] No man is able to guard women entirely by force, but they can be entirely guarded by using these means: [11] he should keep her busy amassing and spending money, engaging in purification, attending to her duty, cooking food, and looking after the furniture. [12] Women are not guarded when they are confined in a house by men who can be trusted to do their jobs well; but women who guard themselves by themselves are well guarded. [13] Drinking, associating with bad people, being separated from their husbands, wandering about, sleeping, and living in other people’s houses are the six things that corrupt women. [14] Good looks do not matter to them, nor do they care about youth.

[15] By running after men like whores, by their fickle minds, and by their natural lack of affection, these women are unfaithful to their husbands even when they are zealously guarded here. [16] Knowing that their very own nature is like this, as it was born at the creation by the Lord of Creatures, a man should make the utmost effort to guard them. [17] The bed and the seat, jewelry, lust, anger, crookedness, a malicious nature, and bad conduct are what Manu assigned to women. [18] There is no ritual with Vedic verses for women; this is a firmly established point of law. For women, who have no virile strength and no
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Vedic verses, are falsehood; this is well established. [19] There are many revealed canonical texts to this effect that are sung even in treatises on the meaning of the Vedas, so that women’s distinctive traits may be carefully inspected. Now listen to the redemptions for their (errors).

[20] “If my mother has given in to her desire, going astray and violating her vow to her husband, let my father keep that semen away from me.” This is a canonical example. [21] If in her mind she thinks of anything that the man that married her would not wish, this is said as a complete reparation for that infidelity. [22] When a woman is joined with a husband in accordance with the rules, she takes on the very same qualities that he has, just like a river flowing down into the ocean. [23] When As.ama¯la¯, who was born of the lowest womb, united with Vasis.t.ha, and Sa¯rangı¯, the bird-woman, with Mandapa¯la, they became worthy of honour. [24] These and other women of vile birth in this world were pulled up through the particular auspicious qualities of their own husbands.

[25] The ordinary life of a husband and wife, which is always auspicious, has thus been described. Now learn the duties regarding progeny, which lead to future happiness, both here on earth and after death. [26] There is no difference at all between the goddesses of good fortune
(sŕiyas)
who live in houses and women
(striyas)
who are the lamps of their houses, worthy of reverence and greatly blessed because of their progeny). [27] The wife is the visible form of what holds together the begetting of children, the caring for them when they are born, and the ordinary business of every day. [28] Children, the fulfillment of duties, obedience, and the ultimate sexual pleasure depend upon a wife, and so does heaven, for oneself and one’s ancestors. [29] The woman who is not unfaithful to her husband but restrains her mind-and-heart, speech, and body reaches her husband’s worlds (after death), and good people call her a virtuous woman.

[30] But a woman who is unfaithful to her husband is an object of reproach in this world; (then) she is reborn in the womb of a jackal and is tormented by the diseases (born) of (her) evil. [31] The following discussion about a son was held by good men and great sages born long ago; listen to it, for it has merit and applies to all people.

[32] They say that a son belongs to the husband, but the revealed canon is divided in two about who the “husband” is: some say that he is the begetter, others that he is the one who owns the field. [33] The woman is traditionally said to be the field, and the man is traditionally said to be the seed; all creatures with bodies reborn from the union of the field and the seed. [34] Sometimes the seed prevails, and sometimes the woman’s womb; but the offspring are regarded as best when both are equal.

[35] Of the seed and the womb, the seed is said to be more important, for the offspring of all living beings are marked by the mark of the seed. [36]

Whatever sort of seed is sown in a field prepared at the right season, precisely 246

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that sort of seed grows in it, manifesting its own particular qualities. [37] For this earth is said to be the eternal womb of creatures, but the seed develops none of the qualities of the womb in the things it grows. [38] For here on earth when farmers at the right season sow seeds of various forms in the earth, even in one single field, they grow up each according to its own nature. [39] Rice, red rice, mung beans, sesame, pulse beans, and barley grow up according to their seed, and so do leeks and sugar-cane.

[40] It never happens that one seed is sown and another grown; for whatever seed is sown, that is precisely the one that grows . [41] A well-educated man who understands this and who has knowledge and understanding will never sow in another man’s wife, if he wants to live a long life. [42] People who know the past recite some songs about this sung by the wind god, which say that a man must not sow his seed on another man’s property. [43] Just as an arrow is wasted if it is shot into the wound of an animal already wounded by another shot, even so seed is immediately wasted on another man’s property. [44] Those who know the past know that the earth
(pr
.
thivı¯)
is still the wife of Pr.thu; they say that a field belongs to the man who clears it of timber, and the deer to the man who owns the arrow.

[45] “A man is only as much as his wife, himself, and his progeny,” the priests say, and also this: “The wife is traditionally said to be what the husband is.”

[46] A wife is not freed from her husband by sale or rejection; we recognize this as the law formulated by the Lord of Creatures long ago. [47] The division (of inheritance) is made once, and the daughter is given (in marriage) once, and a man says “I will give” once; good people do these three things once. [48]

Just as the stud is not the one who owns the progeny born in cows, mares, female camels, and slave girls, in buffalo-cows, she-goats, and ewes, so it is too (with progeny born) in other men’s wives. [49] People who have no field but have seed and sow it in other men’s fields are never the ones who get the fruit of the crop that appears.

[50] If (one man’s) bull were to beget a hundred calves in other men’s cows, those calves would belong to the owners of the cows, and the bull’s seed would be shed in vain. [51] In the very same way, men who have no field but sow their seed in other men’s fields are acting for the benefit of the men who own the fields, and the man whose seed it is does not get the fruit. [52] If no agreement about the fruit is made between the owners of the fields and the owners of the seed, it is obvious that, the profit belongs to the owners of the fields; the womb is more important than the seed. [53] But if this (field) is given over for seeding by means of an agreed contract, then in this case both the owner of the seed and the owner of the field are regarded as (equal) sharers of that (crop). [54] Seed that is carried by a flood or a wind into someone’s field and grows there belongs to the owner of the field, and the man who sowed the seed does not get the fruit.