Written by London Swaminathan

Post No. 14,928

Date uploaded in London –  1 September 2025 

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31 One Thousand Proverbs on Women, Wives and Daughters- part 31

LAST  PART

973

The power of a king lies in his mighty arms; that of a brahmana in his spiritual knowledge; and that of a woman in her beauty youth and sweet words.

The world’s biggest power is the youth and beauty of a woman.

Wealth, a friend, a wife, and a kingdom may be regained; but this body when lost may never be acquired again.

Learning is a friend on the journey; a wife in the house; medicine in sickness; and religious merit is the only friend after death.

She is a true wife who is clean (suci), expert, chaste, pleasing to the husband, and truthful.

When one is consumed by the sorrows of life, three things give him relief: offspring, a wife, and the company of the Lord’s devotees.

–Arthasastra of Kautilya

From woman, man is born; within woman, man is conceived; to woman he is engaged and married.

Woman becomes his friend; through woman, the future generations come.

981

When his woman dies, he seeks another woman; to woman he is bound.

So why call her bad from whom kings are born.

From woman, woman is born; without woman, there would be no one at all.

O Nanak, only the True Lord is without a woman.

That mouth which praises the Lord continually is blessed and beautiful.

“Only they are truly wedded who have one spirit in two bodies.”

“We are conceived in woman, We are born to woman. It is to woman we get engaged, and then get married. Woman is our lifelong companion, And pillar of our survival. It is through woman, that we establish social relationships. Why should we denounce her, When even kings and great men are born from her?” (P. 473 SGGS Guru Nanak)

“Come, my dear sisters and spiritual companions; hug me close in your embrace. Let’s join together, and tell stories of our All-powerful Husband Lord.”-Guru Nanak, pg 17, Guru Granth Sahib.

–From Sikh Religion

988

“To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, woman is less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior:

Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her man could not be.

If non-violence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?”

-Mahatma Gandhi

991

O woman, you are not merely the handiwork of God, but also of men; these are ever endowing you with beauty from their hearts. Poets are weaving for you a web with threads of golden imagery; painters are giving your form ever new immortality. The sea gives its pearls, the mines their gold, the summer gardens their flowers to deck you, to cover you, to make you more precious. The desire of men’s hearts has shed its glory over your youth. You are one half woman and one half dream.”

― Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener

“We should not be afraid of the consequences and cruelty from husband and husband’s family if we say we will not live with a man where there is a denial of complete equality.

Bharathi, robustly tells that women should strictly declare that “if you agree to live with me in equal terms, I will live with you else I will not cook for tonight. I will cook and eat what I want. I will not serve food for you. If you thrash and throw me out, I will not leave this house; rather, I will die here because this house is mine.”

“Oh idiots! How can women be a faithful wife if men fail to keep up their fidelity? Husbands are abusing their wives verbally and physically in order to safeguard their chastity. This kind of atrocity is happening beyond the limits. Ugh! This is a shameless defeat. These injustice and inhumanity are futile.” (3)

“When it comes to the state of chastity

Let it be common for both parties

Practice of pressurizing marriage

on women shall be stamped out” (Kummi)

“Listening to the stories of Savithri, Seetha, Sahundhala makes me wonder how these women conceived such thoughts. Chaste women like them are the pride of our country.”(7)

 “Chastity is considered to be the responsibility of not only the women of Tamilnadu but also to the women of all other civilized countries. Difficulties faced by a woman in order to protect chastity are worth the struggle.”(8)

“If men and women are true to each other, it will result in goodwill. A chaste woman has more power and valour. The truth lies in the story of Savithri who rescued her husband from the clutches of Yama” (9) says Bharathi.

“Women in ancient times committed Sati as they were not willing to live in the absence of their husbands were virtuous. Women who live for the sake of dharma and die for it will be united with the souls of their husbands. Such women are highly virtuous.” (10)

“In spite of child marriage, sometimes when a girl child dies before adolescence, that boy can marry another girl, but if a boy dies, remarriage is not allowed to perform for that girl child in some castes like brahmins except very few other castes. This creates lots of distress.

1001.

Great intellects over here, think why there wasn’t a space for widow remarriages and marriage at a right age, i.e., after adolescence!”

–Subrahmanya Bharathi

***

1002

स्त्रियां तु रोचमानायां सर्वं तद्रोचते कुलम्।

तस्यां त्वरोचमानायां सर्वमेव न रोचते॥

A family’s happiness depends on the woman’s joy—when she’s happy, the family thrives; when she’s not, all feel the impact.

***

1003

अतुलं तत्र तत्तेजः सर्वदेवशरीरजम्।

एकस्थं तदभून्नारी व्याप्तलोकत्रयं त्विषा॥

The incomparable radiance that was born from all gods and pervaded the 3 worlds, came to one place and took the form of a woman.

Source: Devīmahātmyam 2.13

***

1004.

न स्त्रीरत्नसमं रत्नम्।

There is no jewel like a woman.

Chanakya Sutrani 31

***

1005.

KANNAMMA – MY LOVE; REMOVAL OF VEIL

1.IT IS THE CUSTOM WITH DELHI MUSLIMS

TO KEEP THE LOTUS FACE WITH VEIL COVERED

The liana waist and the jutting breast

Are to be veiled, as Sastras so prescribe

—Bharati

–Translation by Dr T N Ramachandran from Tamil

***

1007.

MANU SMRITI -Chapter- 9

9-1. I will now propound the eternal laws for a husband and his wife who keep to the path of duty, whether they be united or separated.

2. Day and night woman must be kept in dependence by the males (of) their families, and, if they attach themselves to sensual enjoyments, they must be kept under one’s control.

9-3. Her father protects her in childhood, her husband protects her in youth, and her sons protect her in old age; a woman is never left without support.

4. Reprehensible is the father who gives not his daughter in marriage at the proper time; reprehensible is the husband who approaches not his wife in due season, and reprehensible is the son who does not protect his mother after her husband has died.

5. Women must particularly be guarded against evil inclinations, however trifling they may appear; for, if they are not guarded, they will bring sorrow on two families.

6. Considering that the highest duty of all castes, even weak husbands must strive to guard their wives.

7. He who carefully guards his wife, preserves the purity of his offspring, virtuous conduct, his family, himself, and his means of acquiring merit.

Son is husband’s replica

9-8. The husband, after conception by his wife, becomes an embryo and is born again of her; for that is the wifehood of a wife (jaya), that he is born (jayate) again by her.

9. As the male is to whom a wife cleaves, even so is the son whom she brings forth; let him therefore carefully guard his wife, in order to keep his offspring pure.

10. No man can completely guard women by force; but they can be guarded by the employment of the following expedients:

11. 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.

9-12. Women, confined in the house under trustworthy and obedient servants, are not well guarded; but those who of their own accord keep guard over themselves, are well guarded. (Tirukkural 56 in Tamil say the same)

Six causes for women’s ruin

13. Drinking (spirituous liquor), associating with wicked people, separation from the husband, rambling abroad, sleeping (at unseasonable hours), and dwelling in other men’s houses, are the six causes of the ruin of women.

14. Women do not care for beauty, nor is their attention fixed on age; thinking), ‘It is enough that he is a man,’ they give themselves to the handsome and to the ugly.(LOVE IS BLIND)

1008

Women are frail; men must protect them

16. Knowing their disposition, which the Lord of creatures laid in them at the creation, to be such, every man should most strenuously exert himself to guard them.

17. (When creating them) Manu allotted to women a love of their bed, of their seat and of ornament, impure desires, wrath, dishonesty, malice, and bad conduct.

1009

Lowest caste woman became the most respected woman in the world

Arundhati is the most praised woman in Sangam Tamil literature and Puranas. She was known as Akshamala

9-23. Akshamala, a woman of the lowest birth, being united to Vasishtha and Sarangi, (being united) to Mandapala, became worthy of honour.

24. These and other females of low birth have attained eminence in this world by the respective good qualities of their husbands.

1110

Women are lamps of houses; women are Goddess Lakshmi

9-26. Between wives (striyah) who are destined to bear children, who secure many blessings, who are worthy of worship and irradiate their dwellings, and between the goddesses of fortune (sriyah, who reside) in the houses of men, there is no difference whatsoever. 

Another translation of 9-26 

There is no difference at all between the Goddesses of good fortune who live in houses and women who are the lamps of the houses, worthy of reverence and greatly blessed because of their children.

27. The production of children, the nurture of those born, and the daily life of men, (of these matters) woman is visibly the cause.

1111

Wife is foundation

28. Offspring, the due performance on religious rites, faithful service, highest conjugal happiness and heavenly bliss for the ancestors and oneself, depend on one’s wife alone.

29. She who, controlling her thoughts, speech, and acts, violates not her duty towards her lord, dwells with him (after death) in heaven, and in this world is called by the virtuous a faithful (wife, sadhvi)

1112

30. But for disloyalty to her husband a wife is censured among men, and (in her next life) she is born in the womb of a jackal and tormented by diseases, the punishment of her sin.

1113

Men are seeds- women are fields

33. By the sacred tradition the woman is declared to be the soil, the man is declared to be the seed; the production of all corporeal beings (takes place) through the union of the soil with the seed.

1114

9-40. That one (plant) should be sown and another be produced cannot happen; whatever seed is sown, (a plant of) that kind even comes forth.

41. Never therefore must a prudent well-trained man, who knows the Veda and its Angas and desires long life, cohabit with another’s wife.

1115

Prithivi/ husband  and Pruthu/ wife

9-44. Sages, who know the past call this earth (prithivi) even the wife of Prithu; they declare a field to belong to him who cleared away the timber, and a deer to him who (first) wounded it.

1116

Seed and Field Simile 

54. If seed be carried by water or wind into somebody’s field and germinates (there), the (plant sprung from that) seed belongs even to the owner of the field, the owner of the seed does not receive the crop.

55. Know that such is the law concerning the offspring of cows, mares, slave-girls, female camels, she-goats, and ewes, as well as of females of birds and buffalo-cows.

—SUBHAM—

Tags – Manu on women, Hindu view of woman, thousand proverbs, on woman, last part, on Women, Wives and Daughters, part 31