Post No. 13,789
Date uploaded in London – 17 October 2024
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tamilandvedas.com, swamiindology.blogspot.com
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Except Manu, Whole World treated Women with Contempt! – Part 1 (Post No.13.789)
Frailty, thy name is woman.
Hamlet
Who is’t can read a woman?
Cymbeline
You are the weaker vessel, as they say, the emtier vessel.
A poor lone woman.
Henry IV
A woman is a dish for the Gods.
Antony and Cleopatra
Do you not know I am a woman ? when I think I must speak.
As You Like it
(all the above quotes are from Shakespeare. I will give more in the second part)
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A woman, an ass, and a walnut tree, the more you beat them, the better they will be.
Bon cheval, mauvais cheval veut l’eperon; bonne femme, mauvaise femme veut le baton- French
Win weib, ein esel und eine nuss- diese drei man klofen muss- german
Donne, asini e noci voglion le mani atroci- italian
It is in Latin and other European languages.
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It is a sad house where the hen crows louder than the cock.
It is in German, Hungarian and other languages.
The hen announces the morning, an ill omen for the house says Book of Shu of first century BCE.
According to Chinese tradition women play a major part in creating destruction. If an emperor gets under the influence of a woman, his rule will end soon.
Jie, the last ruler of the legendary Xia dynasty , 21- 16 century BCE , was a tyrant influenced by his beautiful wife. He committed all sorts of excesses. He was defeated by his opponents, dethroned and forced to exile. Similar cases were recorded in Shang dynasty and also in 19th century.
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Even Tamil and Sanskrit books have anti woman proverbs. But the condition of women was good during Vedic days and Sangam Age. Manu did not even mention the custom of Sati.
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English people treated women as rubbish in the Elizabethan age. Shakespeare also showed us murderous Lady Macbeth or mad Ophelia. He never showed educated, cultured women in any of his plays. Because there was none. But we cant blame him for this. The whole of Europe treated women as stupid and dumb asses.
Here is the proof
Following is given to school children and asked to do more work on these points. In short, these are students notes.
In many of Shakespeare’s plays, the female villain, or femme fatale, is instrumental in moving the plot forward. These characters are manipulative and clever, but they almost always meet a grisly end as a payback for their evil deeds
How were women treated in Shakespeare’s plays?
Women were expected to be subservient, quiet and homebound, with their primary ambitions entirely confined to marriage, childbirth and homemaking; granted, social status and economic class played into what degree these expectations manifested, with the chief example being Queen Elizabeth I herself.21 Nov 2018
Who was the femme fatale in Shakespeare?
Before Lady Macbeth took center stage as Shakespeare’s leading femme fatale, the bard experimented with a number of scheming women, most notably in his first works, the trio of history plays covering the tumultuous reign of Henry VI.30 Sept 2019
Who is the mad woman in Shakespeare?
Ophelia
The ‘mad woman’ in Shakespearean drama. Ophelia may be the token madwoman character in Shakespearean drama, but there are others, including Katherine (The Taming of the Shrew), Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Cassandra (Troilus and Cressida), Volumnia (Coriolanus), and arguably Desdemona (Othello).19 Dec 2016
How many women performed in Shakespeare’s play?
Of the total 981 characters, 826 are men while only 155 are women; that means that women account for less than 16% of all Shakespearean characters. Even fewer women actually performed on stage since most female roles were portrayed by men until the mid-seventeenth century.26 Sept 2015
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Life for women in Shakespeare’s England (In Shakespeare’s England), women’s lives were heavily controlled by the patriarchal society. Women were not allowed to attend school or university, which hugely limited their access to work beyond domestic roles and were not allowed to vote or purchase property. Women were encouraged to be obedient to male authority; fathers tended to have control over who they married and passed legal control of them to their husbands. There was also a huge disparity in terms of expected behaviour between the genders; women were expected to be submissive and sexually pure whereas men were expected to be dominant and promiscuity went unchallenged.
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Women got voting rights only in 1928-Equal Franchise Act 1928
It was not until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 that women over 21 were able to vote and women finally achieved the same voting rights as men. This act increased the number of women eligible to vote to 15 million.
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Marriage in Elizabethan England replicated society’s patriarchal structure. Legally a girl could marry as young as 12 with her parents’ consent, though young women typically married in their late teens or early twenties. When a woman’s father deemed her ready to marry, he had a large degree of control of who she married. Among the aristocracy, where marriages were often more about politics than love, women often had no say at all in who they married. Upon entering marriage, a woman ceased to be her father’s responsibility, and her husband became her legal master. Shakespeare reflects this condition in The Taming of the Shrew, when Petruchio refers to his wife as “my goods, my chattels . . . my ox, my ass, my anything” (III.ii.). As his wife’s legal guardian, a husband was permitted to punish his wife as he saw fit, particularly in cases of infidelity. In several of his plays Shakespeare showcases the real danger that male anxiety over infidelity posed for women. Hermione in The Winter’s Tale is imprisoned because her husband mistakenly believes that she is pregnant by another man. In Othello, Desdemona is murdered by her husband because he believes (again mistakenly) that she is having an affair.
(All the above notes are given to school students in Britain and they are asked to discuss it in class rooms)
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Hindu View during Vedic Days
Manu, author of the great law book Manava Dharma Shastra, says,
‘’women must be honoured and adorned by their fathers, brothers, husbands and bothers-in-law, who desire their own welfare. Manu 3-55
‘’Where women are honoured, there the gods are pleased; but where they are not honoured, no sacred rite yields rewards. Manu 3-56
Where the female relations live in grief, the family soon wholly perishes; but that family where they are not unhappy ever prospers. 3—57
The houses, on which the female relations, not being duly honoured, pronounce a curse, perish completely, as if destroyed by magic’’ Manu 3-58
Hence men, who seek their own welfare, should always honour women on holidays and festivals with gifts of ornaments, clothes and dainty food. 3-59
Sanskrit and Tamil literature even entered the magic or the superstitious world to show that chaste women can do miracles. They can bring fire and rain by their power. But women never abused their powers. Sita says to Hanuman, the first International ambassador, that she can burn the 14 worlds with her power, but she wanted her husband to take the credit of finishing the demon king Ravana of Sri Lanka.
Great poet Valluvar went one step further and says that any chaste woman has the power to make rain at her bidding (Kural 55)
Seeing Arundhati Star
Arundhati: Wife of great ascetic Vashista. Symbol of faithfulness, symbol of Indian womanhood and astral goddess in the Saptarishi Mandalam (Great Bear Constellation in the Northern Sky). Every Hindu must see the star on the First Night in the sky. She was the most praised woman on earth. 5000 year old Vedas and 2000 year old Sangam Tamil literature praised her sky high.
Manu says
‘’Akshamala, a woman of the lowest birth, being united to Vashista and Sarangi (being united) to Mandapala became worthy of honour’’(4-23).Akshamala=Arundhati.
Women in Rig Veda
Many women were regarded as Rishis or seers, i.e. composers of hymns and some of the hymns in the Rig Samhita were attributed to women. Twenty such hymn composing ladies are named in Sarvanukramanika ( List of poetesses and poets). This was 5000 years ago.
Two thousand years ago we see 20 plus Tamil poetesses in Sangam literature
Women attended Conferences!
Gargi Vachaknavi was the only example one can quote for women’s education and freedom from the most ancient days. She was invited to attend an assembly of scholars to discuss philosophical matters. King Janaka of Videha convened the conference. It happened at least 3000 years ago. Even the foreign scholars, who always underestimate and underrate anything Indian, gave the date 800 BC for the Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad, where Gargi appears for the first time. Gargi, a great philosopher, not only attended the conference, but also challenged the most revered philosopher of the day, Yajnavalkya.
Thousand years later, the grand old dame of Sangam Tamil literature Avvaiyar appeared on the scene. She was able to attend the great assembly of the three most powerful kings of the Tamil speaking world– Chera, Choza and Pandya. The occasion was the great Rajasuya Yajnam done by Choza king Peru Nar Killi. She praised them for their unity and wished them long life. She was able to enter any palace without a permit or visit any country without a visa. Poets and ascetics had more rights than the diplomats of the modern world. They can challenge the kings in the assemblies and question their misbehaviour.
To be continued……….
–Subham—
Tags- Woman, Women, Sangam Age, Elizabethan age, England, Shakespeare’s Quotes, Vedic period, Manu on women, Valluvar, Poetesses, Tamil, Sanskrit
Tamil and Vedas 