Ancient Attitudes Toward Women

Indians often explain their attitudes and treatment of women through very religious texts and also in the examples of heroes and heroines from ancient literature.

The Indo-Aryans established a social system in which the father instead of the mother became the head of the family.  The mother is always necessary and important, but she never had independence.  She came to perform her duties as a wife, mother, and housekeeper within a framework that had been prepared in advance by the patriarch.

  (Patriarch=The father and ruler of a family or tribe.)

 All women had to marry and bear children, particularly male, to achieve fulfillment, and many ancient texts are full of prayers for the birth of a son. There is an ancient hymn that says, “may we posses a family of males.”   There is no hymn in any of the ancient  prayers for the birth of a daughter.   In an ancient text,  one king who had 100 wives and no sons is told: “The son is the boat of salvation, a light in the highest heaven. A wife is a comrade but a daughter is a misery.”

       The laws of Manu stated:

       Her father protects her in childhood,
       Her husband protects her in youth,
       Her sons protect her in her old age-
       A women does not deserve Independence.