WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
It is the woman's noblest part to give herself unselfishly and always, that her husband may love and praise her, and her children rise up and call her blessed among women.
Such self-abnegation is the keynote of Hindu feminism. How different from the cult of Western emancipation. And yet may not the West learn from the East, and the East from the West, in this vital question of the position of women? I speak as a whole-hearted supporter of the movement for the advancement of women in social life and politics.
"I desire not paradise itself if thou art not satisfied with me!" cries the divine Hindu spouse to her husband. "She is a true wife who gladdens her husband," says Raja Shekhara in the "Karpura Manjari."
I am indebted to Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy for an excellent statement of the status of the Hindu wife, in his pamphlet, "Sati: A Vindication of the Hindu Woman," printed in 1913. The writer quotes from the "Laws of Manu," the following explicit injunction upon women:—
"Though destitute of virtue, or seeking pleasure elsewhere, or devoid of good qualities, a husband must be constantly worshipped as a god by a faithful wife. … If a wife obeys her husband, she will for that reason alone be exalted in heaven."
"The production of children, the nurture of those
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