|
|
|
Written by Sri Swami Chandrashekarendra
Saraswati |
|
|
|
Those who complain that women have no right to perform sacrifices on
their own must remember that men too have no right to the same
without a wife. If they know this truth they would not make the
allegation
that Hindu sastras look down upon women. A man can perform sacrifices
only with his wife. He does them for the wellbeing
of all mankind and for
his own inner purity. It is for this purpose that, after the samavartana
following the completion of his student-bachelorhood, he goes through
the samskara called marriage.
Marriage or vivaha is known as "saha-dharma-carini-samprayoga". It
means (roughly) union with a wife together with whom a man practises
dharma. The clear implication is that carnal pleasure is not its chief
purpose, but the pursuit of dharma. The sastras do not ask a man to
pursue dharma all by himself but require him to take a helpmate for it.
The wife is called "dharma-patni", "saha-dharma-carini", thus
underlining
her connection with dharma, and not with kama or sensual pleasure.
Here is proof of the high esteem in which the sastras hold women.
The celibate-student and the ascetic alike follow the dharma of their
respective asramas (stages of life) not in association with anyone else.
The householder has to conduct the karma as well as the dharma of
domestic life with his wife as a companion, such being the rule laid
down
in the sastras. The dharma of domestic life is their common property.
Only a householder with a wife may perform sacrifices, not
studentbachelors
and ascetics. If the wife were meant only for sensual
gratification, would the dharmasastras have insisted that a man cannot
perform sacrifices after her death? Women's libbers, who note that a
woman cannot perform a sacrifice on her own, must also recognise that
fact that the husband loses the right for the same without the wife and
this is according to the Vedas themselves. ("Patnivatasya agnihotram
bhavati". ) A great man lamented thus at the time of his wife's death:
"You have taken away all my sacrifices as well as other rituals. " Our
sastras have thus given a high place to women in the matter of duties
and
works.
(See also Part Eighteen) |
|
|
