A question has been raised concerning the status of women in Vedic society. Sriman Kalki was planning to write an article on it, but since he’s caught up in other matters I will write a on it. I will give a brief explanation of स्त्रीधर्म stri-dharma – the culture and religion of Vedic women –, discuss some cultural abuse-of-power-prevention mechanisms and compare the Vedic paradigm with the modern one. I think I can safely say that this article will not appeal to feminists.
Traditional Vedic woman in sari
The Characteristics of Vedic Women
The qualities of Vedic ladies are exemplified in the story of Kardama Muni in third canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, who was to marry the daughter of Svayambhuva Manu, Devahuti:
विश्रम्भेणात्मशौचेन गौरवेण दमेन च ।शुश्रूषया सौहृदेन वाचा मधुरया च भौः ।। २ ।।viśrambheṇātma-śaucena gauraveṇa damena ca |śuśrūṣayā sauhṛdena vācā madhurayā ca bhoḥ ||TRANSLATIONO Vidura, Devahuti served her husband with intimacy and great respect, with control of the senses, with love and with sweet words.PURPORTHere two words are very significant. Devahuti served her husband in two ways, visrambhena and gauravena. These are two important processes in serving the husband or the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Visrambhena means “with intimacy,” and gauravena means “with great reverence.” The husband is a very intimate friend; therefore, the wife must render service just like an intimate friend, and at the same time she must understand that the husband is superior in position, and thus she must offer him all respect. … The natural instinct is that the husband wants to post himself as superior to the wife, and this must be observed. Even if there is some wrong on the part of the husband, the wife must tolerate it, and thus there will be no misunderstanding between husband and wife. Visrambhena means “with intimacy,” but it must not be familiarity that breeds contempt. According to the Vedic civilization, a wife cannot call her husband by name. In the present civilization the wife calls her husband by name, but in Hindu civilization she does not. … Damena ca [means that] a wife has to learn to control herself even if there is a misunderstanding. Sauhrdena vaca madhuraya means always desiring good for the husband and speaking to him with sweet words. (SB 3.23.2)
The wife must be humble towards the husband and treat him (quite literally) as a representative of God. This is corroborated by the Manusamhita (5.154): “Though destitute of virtue, or seeking pleasure (elsewhere), or devoid of good qualities, (yet) a husband must be constantly worshipped as a god by a faithful wife.” To show respect to the husband, the wife never addresses him by name. Instead she uses words like पतिदेव pati-deva (‘husband-god’), प्रभु prabhu (‘my lord’), आर्य arya (‘your highness’) or स्वामी swami (‘master’, ‘proprietor’).
She is also the deer friend of the husband. After a long day at work he returns to a warm, clean home, is greeted with sweet words (the Kama-sutra even prescribes a foot-bath) and served a freshly cooked (not in the micro wave) meal.
Because the woman takes a subordinate position the relationship functions well. Even though the husband ultimately has the right to make all family-related decisions he has a duty to consult the wife and give fair consideration to her view. This leaves little scope for quarrel.
Vedic women cover their hari with a thin cloth to express modesty, shyness and piety.
Other essential qualities are chastity and excellent cooking skills. One of the reasons Kardama Muni accepted Devahuti was that “she was a virgin girl” (3.22.15, purport). Vedic ladies do not interact with men other than their husbands and close family members. Particularly, they do not go anywhere alone, are never alone with any man in a room of their house and do not have close friendships with men. This is to ensure that no one can question their chastity and avoid intimate feelings developing towards other men. Whilst this may sound a bit harsh to a modern person, the result of this separation was that adultery by women was practically unheard of in India in pre-modern times.
As to cooking, Vedic girls were traditionally taught cooking from a young age. This was somehow considered more useful than sending them to do a Harvard MBA or for training as a commercial pilot of special forces commando. In Vedic culture food is almost sacred. It is offered to the deities, people discuss it (not the weather), and traditional families have eating competitions complete with a standing-in-a-swimmingpool-for-forty-minutes interval to help digestion.
These institutions are meant primarily for the woman’s benefit, and not for the husband’s, because by serving the husband as a representative of God the wife makes steady progress on the spiritual path. The wife – by putting the husband above her own ego – learns to become selfless and self-controlled and she becomes a great example for her children, who feel inspired to follow in her foot-steps and continue the sacred traditions (parampara). For ladies pati-seva (‘husband-service’) is a question of honor and a sacrifice they eagerly perform.
Personalism as a prevention-of-abuse mechanism
It is quite apparent from the above description that there is plenty of scope for the husband to misuse his position vis-a-vis the wife. Being worshipped like a god can lead to arrogance.
However, Vedic institutions do not work in a vacuum. Prior to the wedding the husband would have received training in how it is appropriate to behave towards his wife. Traditionally young boys aged six were sent to the गुरुकूलम् gurukulam (the ‘guru-school’) – a kind of traditional boarding school where they would learn proper conduct. Alternatively they would (and still do) learn Vedic norms and values at home. These systems are still in place in India, albeit becoming increasingly rare.
Men learn the Vedic philosophy, rights, customs and traditions from a young age.
Traditional Vedic education puts emphasis on character building and spiritual values – including humility – above theoretical knowledge. The centre of Vedic education is culture, which is to say, the codes of proper behavior and etiquette towards the guru, one’s parents, other superiors, equals, subordinates – and one’s wife. At the centre of Vedic culture is the notion of ‘non-envy’, that is, the culture of genuine respect, of not exploiting others, and of being others’ well-wisher. The philosophical basis of this culture is called personalism or the culture of respecting people as persons as opposed to objects meant for one’s enjoyment. Having been trained in the culture of personalism the husband will know how to understand his wife’s heart, ensure that she is happy and satisfied, and how not to let his ‘husband-god’ status go to his head.
The Vedic versus the Modern
Having explained some of the intricacies of the culture of Vedic women and their relationship with Vedic men, let us compare this system to the modern one, which today is most prominent in the West. This modern anti-culture hardly needs any description. I’m sure all Motpol’s readers are very intimately familiar with it.
The basis of modern ‘civilisation’ is sense-gratification. Modern culture is on the level of the dogs and hogs in that the greatest values in western ‘culture’ are (i) sense-gratification, (ii) prestige. Sense-gratification means that modern people seek to maximise the extent to which they experience material enjoyment by gratifying their sensual desires. These vary from very gross (e.g. sex) to more subtle (e.g. the desire to own a nice car). The desire for prestige is basically an egoistic urge to be worshipped (figuratively speaking) by others.
Thus, women see it as their right to enjoy the bodies of as many men as they can get to wiggle their tales at them. It goes without saying they’re not too interested in chastity. A lot of them still manage to confine themselves to enjoying one male body for a given period of time, but even that is changing. And when they no longer derive pleasure from the body of their temporary partner they ‘break up’ and find a different one. From the Vedic point of view, such degraded behavior is nothing more than unpaid prostitution.
The shopping religion is the meaning of life to some.
Sense-gratification is also very subtle. A woman may become attached to a man because he is able to satisfy certain psychological needs. But at the end of the day it’s still all about her, and if she wakes up one day and feels she doesn’t ‘love him anymore’, it’s over, and a new adventure can begin. It’s a bit tough for the children, but what the hell they’ll get over it.
Then there is the quest for recognition. “Hey, look at me, I’m Ms CEO of McCorporation”. The other aspect of that is, of course, that she is independent of her husband (or “partner”), which is simply another way of saying that no one can control and thereby limit her sense-gratification.
I’m not trying to only blame the women here. The men are also degraded. In this respect we seem to have achieved true gender equality anno 2010: equal degradation. Just like the women want to enjoy the men’s penises or his money or whatever, the men accept female partners on the basis of their bra sizes (in some cases the panty size is also an important consideration). And as with women, they want to use their partners’ bodies to gratify their senses and gain prestige by showing off their beautiful free prostitutes (“girlfriends”) to others.
Modesty, shyness and piety are not among the qualities of many modern women.
I know this is a simplification, but lets not cloud the issue with all sorts of subtleties that don’t change the ultimate conclusion: modern gender philosophy has destroyed the institution of marriage and replaced it with temporary, selfish sense-enjoyment cum prostitution. Contrast this with the Vedic idea of God-centred personalism and overcoming one’s selfishness by serving the pati-deva, ‘husband-god’.
If I ask myself: which way of life, which view of women, which culture, which kind of relationship is superior and worth modeling one’s life by? Is it the view that women are objects of enjoyment, or the one that they are persons with consciousness like myself and therefore worthy of empathy and respect? Is it the culture of ‘do whatever you feel like regardless of how it effects others (except to the degree I feel sorry for them)’, or is it the culture of self-control, purity and modesty? Is it the relationship without any firm commitment based on service to the genitals, or the strong relationship for life based on selfless service and passing down the sacred etiquettes and traditions to the next generation?
Personally, I have no hesitation in saying ‘the latter’.
