Strī Dharma

Strī Dharma · strī-dharma, “the dharma of women”

Strī Dharma is the dharma of women. In the Brahma Parva of the Bhavishya Purāṇa, Sumantu Muni tells Śatānīka the teaching that Brahmā gave the ṛshis: a full account of how a woman should conduct herself towards her husband, his kin and others; how she governs the house, its stores, cattle and workers; how she lives among co-wives; how she keeps her conduct when her husband is away; and what a neglected wife should do. The Purāṇa names Strī Dharma among the subjects it treats.

Brahmā says that the woman who looks on her husband as daiva in mind, speech, body and act becomes like the half of his body. For women’s gaining of dharma, artha and kāma he appoints two causes: being favourable to the husband, and a śīla (good character) that never slips. To a woman who has these two, gold and gems are only burdens. The woman who keeps this way obtains dharma, artha and kāma in full, and the highest happiness in this world and the next.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapters 1, 11, 13–16

The wife in the teaching on the gṛhastha

Brahmā teaches the gṛhastha that wealth and woman are the causes of attaining the trivarga. For the guarding of wealth and the attainment of dharma the support is of three kinds: the man, the place and the house. The man who is the support is kulīna (of good family), nītimān (of right conduct), prājña (wise), satyasandha (true to his word), dṛḍhavrata (firm in vows), vinīta (humble), dhārmika and tyāgī (one who gives up).

In matters of dharma, artha and kāma, a man must not deceive women. By dealing falsely with them in the trivarga, he becomes separated from himself. In the attaining of dharma and the rest, the wife is man’s half body, so she must not be pained in those karmas. In yajñas, utsavas and the like he must not suddenly quarrel with her. In giving clothes, tāmbūla and honour he should be equal to all his wives. A woman should attain first dharma and artha, then sons, and then the purushārtha of kāma.

Three causes of pātivratya are named: no love for other men, love for her own husband, and her own protection. Women who are dear, who bring kīrti to the kula, the jewels among sādhvīs, of pure conduct and full of love for the husband, are to be honoured always.

Brahmā also tells of kings who died through women or their kin, and teaches watchfulness from it:

• Śubhadhvaja was slain by a weapon hidden in a braid.
• The ruler of Sauvīra was killed by the gem on his queen’s waist-girdle.
• Bhadrasena was killed by his queen together with her brother.
• Kārūsha was killed by his own son, with a piece of mirror like a sword.
• Two revered kings of Kāśī were killed by a woman of Ānandāpura, with poison.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 8

Outward and inner conduct

To know the husband’s mind and act accordingly, and to have a nature that seeks his good, is the way of pūjā for a woman of the house. Women are of three kinds: the kanyā, the one remarried, and the veśyā. Among these are again three kinds each: dear, middling and not dear; fit, middling and unfit; best, equal and low.

The conduct of all women is of two kinds, bāhya (outward) and abhyantara or āntara (inner). Bāhya is how she behaves towards others than her husband. It is of two kinds, towards relations and towards those not relations, and each of these is threefold: pūjya (to be honoured), tulya (equal) and kanishṭha (younger, lesser). Āntara is how she behaves in relation to her own body, and it is threefold: ekānta (private), āsakti (attachment) and prakāśa (open).

Those like one’s own are his mother, father, sister, brother, father’s brother, the ācārya, the maternal uncle, her co-wife, the husband’s sibling, his parents’ siblings, the nurse, old women and the like. Until honour and standing come through children and saubhāgya, women have no fitness to govern others younger than themselves. The first wife and the co-wife are among women those to be most honoured. Their children, sisters and brothers, the husband’s younger wife and the like are equal to āptas. Anywhere and at any time it is praiseworthy for women to act without going against pūjā-ācāras towards their husbands and elders.

She gives up joking and being in a private place with younger brothers-in-law and the husband’s friends. Attachment to the company of evil people and joking talk with young men are not fitting. She moves away the moment she sees men of evil intent who act like a brother or a father, and she rejects their false favour, conversation, smiles and deceiving looks. Things are given and taken from a distance of an arm’s span.

She restrains these: standing at the door, looking out towards the royal road, going about seeing gardens, places and houses; the three kinds of fickleness, of the eye, of speech and of the body; spitting with a harsh hawking, laughing loudly, speaking in a loud voice; friendship with one who wears the dress of a sannyāsin for a livelihood, with bad women, beggar women, sannyāsinīs and the like; and fondness for mantra-dīkshās and the clothes connected with them. So, guarding the honour of three, the family of her birth, her husband’s family and the kind of women, she gives up bad conduct.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 10

The woman and the house

She holds what her husband loves as dear to her too, and what he dislikes as to be disliked by her too. She acts without negligence towards all the servants. In deva karmas and pitṛ karmas, in the husband’s bath and meals, and in the honour shown to guests, she must never fail.

The housewife’s care is of two parts, the house and herself, and the house is set in order first. In the morning, at midday and in the afternoon she sweeps the outside, the middle and the inner part of the house; only at night she does not sweep. She decorates it three times in a day. The gośālā and paśuśālā are cleaned with a broom after the dung is removed. She knows how to maintain the dāsas and dāsīs who work inside and outside, and how to set them to their tasks.

She gathers vegetables, bulbs and roots, fruits, medicinal plants and creepers, and seeds in their seasons. She gathers vessels of copper, bronze, iron and other metals, of wood, bamboo and clay. The Purāṇa lists the things of the house: spouted water vessels like a cow’s ear, vessels for storing water, vessels with rims, bowls for cooking vegetables, things for buttermilk, butter and ghee, the pestle, mortar and hand-mill, the milking tool, the churning-stick and rope, chains, tongs, round pots, nails, needle and sewing thread, a kaluvapu-guṇḍu, an axe, the hammer, the ladle, the frying pan, the tool for splitting (glossed as a nut-cutter), the balance and weighing stones, brooms and small baskets.

The stores of the kitchen are hiṅgu; nutmeg, long pepper, black pepper, black mustard, coriander and dry ginger; kampilla, which the text glosses as the medicine rocanī; salt and other things that give taste; jujube, date, āmalaka and tamarind; all kinds of oils; dry wood; dried meat, which the text glosses as fish; garlic; sesame powder; buttermilk preparation made with urad; curd, butter and ghee; and various tubers. All substances useful for nitya and naimittika karmas are gathered according to one’s means, and whatever may be hard to find at need is kept beforehand.

From time to time she determines the increase and decrease (vṛddhi-kshaya) of the grains and of the foods made ready from them.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 11

Grain, cattle, fibre and workers

Brahmā goes on to the worth of the grains, pulses and oils, how they compare, and how cooking and age increase their quality. Sesame oil is the best among the oils named. She reasons out the blights and losses of each field and season, and stays watchful. She diligently examines the milk of the cows every paksha or month.

The measures, as the Brahma Parva prints them:

• Among red paddy and āḷḷu, the crop called udāraka has the best quality. Among koṟalu and āḷḷu, the haṃsa grain is better by five parts.
• Five parts in priyaṅgu, eleven parts in paddy and a third part in chickpea are known to be equal.
• Drinks of barley and wheat are held equal with the flours of mung, urad, sesame and barley. Ground wheat and flours of parched grain have essence from five parts upwards.
• Alacandalu (kāru minumulu) and powdered meat are better from a half upwards.
• Punnāka, kāru minumulu, foxtail millet (korra), āḷḷu, chickpea and udāraka as cooked food are twice as good.
• Cīnaka has twice the essence, red grain four times and śāli five times. When these are old the essence is greater still.
• Through excellent cooking the increase of quality becomes double. Grains that sprout again have four parts of increase.
• In cāpakas and in flours, round chickpeas are less by a fourth. With mung, urad and small chickpeas an eighth is the lowest. Mung, urad and small chickpeas, tested against toor, are less by five parts.
• Among the oils of sesame, gāra, ippa, kānugu and safflower, sesame oil is best by a fourth.
• The fault in the produce of goats and the like is a quarter part more than the measure of fault in cows’ milk and buffalo ghee. Good land, the grass grazed and the time of grazing bring the increase of milk and ghee.
• Through beating and wind cotton loses twenty parts, and the same is spoken of for wool. Thread is reckoned with a loss of fifty parts, and with the mixing of oil or starch there is a gain of twenty-one parts.
• If the hair of animals is very fine or middling, the value of its threads stays above half. If coarse, a fourth part is lost.

For cutting cotton, cocoons and wool she employs those with crooked hands, the lame, the blind and widowed women; in other works boys, the old, the blind and the feeble, giving them gifts that suit them. In the gaps between works, and when the husband is abroad, she herself may do such works without hesitation. She thinks well over the differences among the cattle-keepers and their wages. In work with hemp fibre and cotton a fifth may be paid as wage, fixed by place, time and the practice of others. Coarse fibre is cleaned in three days, middling in three nights, fine up to a paksha, and within a month it is wholly prepared. The value of animal hair is known through workmanship, place and time. Beds, seats, blankets and many other things depend on the skill of those who make them. Small shawls and the like, and large blankets of middling thread, are most liked by gurus, the old, boys and guests.

Cows, calves and heifers are fed on oil-cake, pieces of stalk, cold rice and the like, and this food is used for the cowherds and the beings of the herd also. She milks the cows but does not trouble the calves: twice in varsha, śarad and vasanta, once in the other ṛtus. Buttermilk may feed dogs and pigs, may soak oil-cake, and may be readied for sale. She thinks well over the differences among the cattle-keepers (paśupālaka) and their wages. Wages for cowherds may be fixed in grain or in money. It is they who are bound by rule to run the dealings in milk, but through greed they have put those occupations away. The milker, the cowherds and the churners must keep their times. Calves are fed for as long as needed with balls of oil-cake, tender grass, salt and water. The old cow, the cow in calf, the cow in milk, the cow with a young calf and the cow with a bull-calf a little grown are given tender grass equally.

For three hundred head, one or two gopālas; for five, one boy, each kept separately, are best. Bells are tied at their necks to find strays and to frighten snakes, and they serve the animals’ beauty and protection. Herds are kept only in forests with no cattle disease, no snakes and no evil bhūtas, where grass and water are plentiful. Sheep and goats are kept in sheltered forests, and wool is taken twice a year, in Caitra and Āśvayuja. In a flock there should be ten he-goats and rams, for one cow herd four or five bulls, and in the same way males of strong seed are kept among horses, camels and buffaloes.

She finds out whether the farmers and farm servants are doing their work well. Their food and wages are fixed by each one’s work and the season. Work goes on in the fields, paddy beds and vegetable gardens, and she watches the bad among them every moment. To a worker of greater skill she gives separately food, cloth and oil for the head.

She keeps safe what has come into being, gathers what is kept safe, and sows what is gathered at the proper time. The root of the house is the woman, and the gṛhasthāśrama has grain as its root. So grain is collected daily and used with thrift. See how honey grows drop by drop, how an anthill grows grain by grain of earth, how collyrium, used little by little, runs out. In the same way she neglects no food as small. Brahmā adds that there are many men in whose house the woman has the leading place, and that it is no fault for such women to direct.

The husband stays with the wife for his own happiness. She serves him in many ways, and serves her father-in-law and mother-in-law, arranging their beds and the like. She does not have the works that belong to the husband done by others.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 12

The day and the kitchen

The woman wakes before everyone, finishes her own duties, sees to the servants’ affairs, eats and rests. She calls the workers to her dwelling and sets them to their works. When the husband has woken she provides what he needs. In the house she puts aside fine clothes and ornaments, wears a dress fit for working, and does each work in its time and order.

She sweeps the kitchen, purifies the hearth and keeps all utensils free from impurity. The pākaśālā should be neither too secluded nor too open, should allow work to be done apart, should be lively with those dear to her husband, clean, and out of the sight of outsiders. Vessels are washed with shell powder and fibre until they gleam. The night fire is made with wood dried in the sun by day and picked over. She sets good curd in well-scoured vessels. She herself cooks for her husband, noting which of the six rasas is dear to him and which foods keep him in health. Enemies, and those the husband was angered with, frightened, insulted or abused, must not be employed in cooking.

She stays in charge of his food and drink without negligence. Having finished cooking and wiped off the sweat, she adorns herself moderately and feeds him with humble eagerness.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 13

Co-wives and the new bride

She treats a co-wife’s children more than her own, sees the co-wife as a sister and the co-wife’s daughters-in-law as her own relations, and gives food, clothes, snāna and adornment to her own children only when they are given to the co-wife’s children. To the sick, medicine goes with great love to the co-wife’s children as to her own, and to all dependants. She grieves in their grief and rejoices in their contentment, and she has fellow-feeling in the joys and sorrows of servants, relatives and co-wives. At night she instructs her husband in private if he is spending wealth or time wrongly.

She does not tell him small matters about co-wives, but dangerous matters such as vyabhicāra (unfaithfulness) she reports in secret. A co-wife who is unfortunate, childless or rejected she comforts, and brings the husband to love her. If after a long time no child comes to her, she recognises the way of niyati and takes comfort.

Whatever the husband wishes to do, another marriage and the like, she shows readiness for it. She carries out with care the whole of the husband’s marriage rite, and looks on the bride he has married as her younger sister. She honours the new bride’s relatives joyfully. Without jealousy or anger, like a mother, she trains the bride in the works of the house.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 13

The devatās of each, and the two causes

“To women their husbands, to all varṇas the brāhmaṇas, to brāhmaṇas the agnihotra, to the people the king, are the daivatas.” For women’s gaining of dharma, artha and kāma two causes are appointed: being favourable to the husband, and a śīla that never slips. Not form, youth and ornaments but being favourable to the husband is wholesome. There are women without age or beauty who have become worthy of his love in this way. The root of worth is to know the minds of others in all works and act accordingly.

When the husband comes she readies a seat for him, sends away the maid, herself washes his feet and fans away his weariness. In food, bath and drink, wherever he turns his glance, she knows the sign and provides it. She honours the relatives of her co-wives and her husband according to the husband’s mind. For women in every state, the bond with the husband’s kula alone is to be honoured.

No man born in a good kula desires any benefit from his daughter’s side. He adorns his daughter and gives her in marriage as the śāstra says. To give a girl and thereby provide one’s livelihood is not fit for the good. The bride’s side should receive from the groom’s side only the regard that seeks love alone.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 13

Her good name

She keeps up her love for her husband, guards her standing in the world, protects herself from blame, and follows good ways. Though beloved of her husband, though of good śīla, and though her birth-kula had good fame, through lokāpavāda (public blame) Sītā met terrible misfortune.

Brahmā says that the śīla of women is hard to know, because of enjoyment, want of knowledge of merit and fault, and want of modesty. Even when women have no stain in the mind, there are those who appear fallen, through daiva-yoga, ill chance or not knowing how to act. For that the medicine is to create a noble character and act according to the way of the world.

A woman walks according to ācāra as it is laid down. She guards the honour of the house of birth, the house of marriage and of womankind, and keeps firm the honour of the children. Through ill conduct the mother’s kula, the father’s kula and the husband’s kula fall along with her; women whose ornament is noble conduct can uplift them. To women who have these two, being in tune with the husband’s mind and good śīla, gold, gems and the like are only burdens and no ornaments. For women of good lineage there is no higher dharma than the world, jñāna and unshaken bhakti in the husband: these are the kula-vrata. The woman who duly honours the world and her husband gains dharma, artha and kāma undecaying.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 13

While the husband is abroad

When the husband has gone to another country, she keeps only the adornment that marks her as a suvāsinī, and ornaments such as the maṅgalasūtra. She works so that the work he began bears fruit. She keeps his dealings going and reduces expense. She sleeps near her mother-in-law, the nurse and such elders. She is intent on vratas and upavāsas, asks the daivajñas about his welfare, pays vows and pūjās to the devatās concerned for his quick return, and daily offers pūjā for his welfare.

She does not wear costly clothes or scented oils. She goes to the houses of relatives only at the command of the elders, together with the husband’s protectors. Even then she does not stay long and does not bathe there. When he has come home and finished his bath and meal, she adorns herself, goes to him gladly, and gives him the offerings and prasādas she had offered to daiva.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 14

Among the wives of one husband

Towards the senior co-wife she acts as a younger mother, and sees the elder one’s children as her own and her kin as her own kin. She does not sit on a seat in front of the husband or call him, and in all works she acts according to his mind. She does not speak with those hostile to him, and she is friendly with his friends.

Gold and gems brought from her mother and father she lovingly gives to the husband. He should give her in return some gift, keep that wealth aside, and return it to her on some special occasion. The having of co-wives is a cause of jealousy, so the husband should act generously and end the rivalry among them.

On the day that falls to her she adorns herself, goes to the husband as one who is shy and delights him in private. Afterwards she goes to the elder wife’s dwelling, and seeing no objection she parts gently and returns. With the sixty-four kalās she delights him. To be full of śṛṅgāra in private with the husband, and very modest among people, is a woman’s fitness. As she comes to hold the rule of the house she does not neglect the honour of the elder wives. She reports to the husband in private about the house’s affairs, gifts and spending.

By being the earlier wife, the elder wife holds authority over the younger, even unwillingly. Seeing the husband drawn to the younger wife, she asks the younger for her own rest, and holds authority with a daughter’s love for her. She keeps her honour and contents herself in the service she has done him. Servants must follow the master in mind, speech, body and act, and for women this is even more important. She keeps watch on the husband and the running of the house, gathers virtues, stays steady, does not forget her seniority, and does not give way to the pride of wealth or to arrogance. As if from fear of kirātas, she acts wholly under his command. As good fortune grows, her love and regard toward all who depend on the family should grow.

The woman who so honours her husband, does each work with watchfulness, honours those to be honoured, nourishes servants well, gathers virtues and guards them like her own good śīla, surely enjoys the highest happiness in this world and the next.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 14

The neglected wife

A durbhagā, a wife neglected by her husband, passes her time in upavāsa and such niyamas and in the outer tasks that concern her husband. She does not praise her co-wives or blame herself, and she shows neither jealousy nor love towards her husband. She thinks: “That a woman like me has gained the place called ‘wife’ to such an āyushmān: this itself is greatness.” She is neither wholly without ornaments nor heavily adorned. She does not take the gandha and flowers of her husband’s service. She may take what is of no use to him, above all what his beloved wife does not like.

She cleans the children of the other wives and the places where they live, and gives help for her husband’s sake even if he does not ask. In everything she follows her co-wives, and towards them, above all towards the wife dearest to the husband (priyabhāryā), she keeps the attitude of bowing. She does the tasks left undone, such as sweeping the house; women generally doing such work is called a vidhi even without charge of it. She bathes, feeds and adorns her husband’s children with care like a nurse, for they too are like her own.

A comfortable life comes through children, or through the strī-dhana the husband arranges. What she has saved in youth and prime she uses in old age. She earns great fame by the good acts of good conduct.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 15

How a woman becomes subhagā or durbhagā

By birth no woman is durbhagā or subhagā. The label, like friendship and enmity, comes from the way a person behaves. Women become durbhagā from three things: not knowing the husband’s mind, failing to act in keeping with his feelings, and conduct against the ways of the world. By acting in keeping with another’s mind even a stranger becomes dear; by acting against it even one’s own relative becomes hated.

So in every condition, by mind, word and deed, she follows her husband’s mind and does what is dear to him. If his dear wife is angry for any reason, she makes her gracious towards him again by every effort.

She learns real skill in foot service and in pressing the body and the head, deeply on the arms, shoulders, thighs, waist, back, head and feet, moderately in other places, and softly on places without flesh, the marma-sthānas, the heart and the cheeks: firmly when he is awake, moderately when half asleep, softly when asleep, and not at all in deep sleep.

This is the way of conduct for a woman intended by the śāstra and by the world. The woman who follows this way and serves her husband obtains dharma, artha and kāma in full.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 15

The natures of women

In the teaching on the marks of women, Brahmā tells Kārttikeya the kinds of women by nature:

• Mānushī: of praiseworthy conduct, with bhakti for gurus, a pativratā, with bhakti for devatās and brāhmaṇas.
• Devatā: bathing every day, fragrant, always speaking kindly, eating little, of little anger.
• Mārjārī: the cat-natured; the name stands in the text without its description.
• Rāsabhī: laughing, playing, angry one moment and pleased the next.
• Āsurī: doing what goes against her husband and kinsmen.
• Rākshasī: eating too much, talking too much, speaking unkindly, tormenting her own husband.
• Piśācī: without purity or ācāra.
• Gāndharvī: always bathed, of fragrant body, loving to roam among trees and gardens.
• Vānarī: fickle, of unsteady nature, always looking about in all directions, given to wandering, and a miser.
• Vidyādharī: a face like the orb of Candra, well-set limbs, a gait like that of an elephant in rut, nails and hands shining red.
• Gāndharvā: delighting in the vīṇā, the flute and songs, in flowers, fragrant incense and perfumes.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 28

The close of the teaching

Sumantu tells Śatānīka that Brahmā, having explained the lakshaṇas of women and their conduct in full, went to his own abode, and the ṛshis, having heard all to the end, went to their own āśramas.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 16

Sources

• Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapters 1, 8, 10–16, 28