She is a true wife who is….....

              She is a true wife who is….
Mahabharata, Adi Parva, Section LXXIV
Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan
                                 
She is a true wife who is skilful in household affairs.
She is a true wife who has borne a son.
She is a true wife whose heart is devoted to her lord (husband).
She is a true wife who knows none but her lord.
The wife is a man’s half.
The wife is the first of friends.
The wife is the root of religion, profit and desire.
The wife is the root of salvation. They that have wives can perform religious acts.
They that have wives can lead domestic lives.
They that have wives can achieve good fortune.
Sweet speeched wives are friends on occasions of joy.
They are the fathers on occasions of religious acts.
They are mothers in sickness and woe.
Even in the deep woods to a traveler a wife is his refreshment and solace.
He that has a wife is trusted by all.


Kannaki

                                        
                          A wife, therefore, is one’s most valuable possession. Men scorched by mental grief, or suffering under bodily pain, feel as much refreshed in the companionship of their wives as a perspiring person in a cool bath.
No man even in anger, should do anything that is disagreeable to his wife, seeing that happiness, joy and virtue, - everything depends on the wife.
                       A householder’s home, even if filled with sons and grandsons and daughters-in-law and servants, is regarded empty if destitute of the housewife. One’s house is not one’s home; one’s wife only is one’s home. A house without the wife is as desolate as the wilderness.


Savitri

                                   
                      Even when the husband leaving this world goes into the region of Yama (God of death), it is the devoted wife that accompanies him there. A wife going before waits for the husband. But if the husband goes before, the chaste wife follows close. For these reasons does marriage exist.
In the Mahabharata, a husband describing her truly devoted wife says:
                "She never eats before I eat,
                  and never bathes before I bathe.
                  She rejoices if I rejoice, and
                  becomes sorry when I am sorry.
                  When I am away she becomes cheerless, and
                  when I am angry she ceases not to speak sweetly.                 
                Ever devoted to her lord and ever relying upon her lord, she was ever employed in doing what was agreeable to and beneficial for her lord. Worthy of praise is that person on earth who owns such a spouse. That amiable wife knows that I am fatigued and hungry. Devoted to me and constant in her love, my spouse is exceedingly sweet-tempered and worships me devoutly.
                    Even the foot of a tree is one`s home if one lives there with one`s spouse as a companion. Without one`s spouse, a very palace is truly a desolate wilderness. One`s spouse is one`s associate in all one`s acts of Virtue, Profit and Pleasure. It is said that the wife is the richest possession of her lord. In this world the wife is the only associate of her lord in all the concerns of life. The wife is ever the best medicines that one can have in sickness and woe. There is no friend like unto the wife.
                          There is no refuge better than the wife. There is no better ally in the world than the wife in acts undertaken for the acquisition of religious merit. He that has not in his house a wife that is chaste and of agreeable speech, should go to the woods. For such a man there is no difference between home and wilderness.
                      That woman who always takes a pleasure in rising at early dawn, who is devoted to the discharge of all household duties, who always keeps her house clean, who always attends to the domestic fire (for pouring libations upon it), who never neglects to make offerings of flowers and other articles to the deities, who with her husband gratifies the deities is regarded as possessed of ascetic wealth.
                  That woman who always observes, with a light heart, vows that are difficult of observance, whose heart is devoted to her lord, and always seeks good of her lord, is regarded as entitled to share the merits of her husband. Devotion to her lord is woman`s merit; it is her penance; it is her eternal Heaven. Merit, penances, and Heaven become hers who looks upon her husband as her all in all, and who, endued with chastity, seeks to devote herself to her lord in all things.
                
                   Woman is the backbone or bedrock to sustain religion and national strength, peace and prosperity. Manu declares:
"The woman who always does good, who is efficient in work, sweet in speech, devoted to her duty of her husband, is really no human being but a goddess."
                   The eternal fidelity of a Hindu woman to her husband makes her an ideal of the feminine world. It makes her sublime. This lofty virtue of fidelity runs deep in the heart of every Hindu woman of India, superior to any of the other countries in national integrity and honour.
                            Without the spiritual nourishment coming from religion, the phenomenal progress of the modern age has become wobbly in its movement and blind in its course."
-Swami Ranganathananda
Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama, Belur Math
                    We continue below with Swami Shivananda’s writings on the vital role of women as the builders of nations:
The performance of domestic duties,
               the management of her household,
               the rearing of children,
               the economising of the family means- these are a woman’s proper office. She is already endowed with divine power. She already governs the world by her power of gentle love and affection. To make noble citizens by training her children, and to form the character of the whole human race is undoubtedly a power far greater than that which a woman could hope to exercise as a voter or a law-maker, as a president, minister or judge.

The mother's impressions strike deep root in the brain of the foetus that dwells in the womb. If the pregnant woman does Japa (repetition of Lord's name with or without rosary) and Kirtan (Singing the Lord's glories), if she studies religious books and leads a pious life during pregnancy, the foetus is endowed with spiritual inclination   or spiritual tendency.

                  That home is a miserable place, a veritable hell on earth wherein the husband moves up in spirituality and the wife pulls him down into sensual grooves, and vice versa. Both should be harmoniously blended or joined by the sacred thread of self-knowledge, each aspiring eagerly for God-consciousness. That home really is heaven where the husband and wife lead an ideal divine life, singing the Lord’s name, repeating His mantra, studying sacred scriptures, controlling the senses and serving devotees and renunciates

                        

If a woman is pure she can save and purify man. She can purify the race. She can make a home a sacred temple. Hindu women have been the custodians of the Hindu race. Hindu religion and civilisation still survive in spite of the many foreign invasions. Other civilisations have come and gone, but only Hindu civilisation has survived on account of the purity of Hindu women. The women are taught to regard chastity as their most priceless possession, and the loss of it equal to the eternal damnation of their soul. From their very childhood religion is ingrained in Hindu women. As such they illumine and enliven the home through the glory of their purity. This is the secret of the endurance of the Hindu religion, civilisation and culture.
                 There where women are not worshipped, all acts become fruitless. If the women of a family, in consequence of the treatment they receive, grieve and shed tears, that family soon becomes extinct. Those houses that are cursed by women meet with destruction and ruin as if scorched by some Atharvan rite. Such houses lose their splendour. Their growth and prosperity cease.