constantly occupied in praying. If only she satisfactorily perform her duties as a human being, she may let prayer alone without ceasing to enjoy the divine protection.
"In her capacity of wife, she must keep her husband's household in proper order. If the wife be evil and profligate, the house is ruined. In everything she must avoid extravagance, and both with regard to food and raiment must act according to her station in life, and never give way to luxury and pride.
"While young, she must avoid the intimacy and familiarity of her husband's kinsmen, comrades, and retainers, ever strictly adhering to the rule of separation between the sexes; and on no account whatever should she enter into correspondence with a young man. Her personal adornments and the colour and pattern of her garments should be unobtrusive. It suffices for her to be neat and cleanly in her person and in her wearing-apparel. It is wrong in her, by an excess of care, to obtrude herself on the notice of others. Only that which is suitable should be practised.
"She must not selfishly think first of her own parents, and only secondly of her husband's relations. At New Year, on the Five Festivals,[1] and on other like occasions, she should first pay her respects to those of her husband's house, and then to her own parents. Without her husband's permission, she must go nowhere, neither should she make any gifts on her own responsibility.
"As a woman rears up posterity, not to her own parents, but to her father-in-law and mother-in-law, she must value the latter even more than the former, and tend them with all filial piety. Her visits, also, to the paternal house should be rare after marriage. Much more then, with regard to other friends, should it generally suffice for her to send a message to enquire after their health. Again, she must not be filled with pride at the recollection of the splendour of her parental house, and must not make it the subject of her conversations.
"However many servants she may have in her employ, it is a woman's duty not to shirk the trouble of attending to everything herself. She must sew her father-in-law's and mother-in-law's garments, and make ready their food. Ever attentive to the requirements of her husband, she must fold his clothes and dust his rug, rear his children, wash what is dirty, be constantly in the midst of her household, and never go abroad but of necessity.
"Her treatment of her handmaidens will require circumspection. These low and aggravating girls have had no proper education; they are stupid, obstinate, and vulgar in their speech. When anything in the conduct of
- ↑ See page 357.
