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42 SUKUMARI BI1ATTAC11ARJ1

Her Galava leni to four kings in tum, to eaeh of whom shc borę a son, Gfilava rcccived the rental and collected the necessary funds. When Her father sought to give her in marriage she declined. She had paid the coarser price of conjugality without enjoying any of its bliss: the wholc thing bccame utterly loathsome to her and she took to a life of meditation. Within marriage also, female productivity had such a premium aftued to it that undoubtedly it tumcd some wivcs against it. Especially, when the husband could abandon the wifc for not producing małe children. Ali blessings to the newly-wed bride were for motherhood of sons. Fecundity which basically was the animal part of the wife 's conjugality was intlated out of all proportions, so that we hear of Sagara’s sixty thousand sons, Dhrtar&stra*s hundred sons, Daksa’s lifty daughtcrs, et aJ . No doubl these figures are inllalcd, but the conjugal expeclalions are not. Before this role-model of the wifc-molhcr-housekcepcr was assigncd to her, woman’s liberty to remain a spinstcr had already been withdrawn (as the episode of Kunigarga’s daughtcr illustralcs); marriage had bccomc compulsory only lor the woman, which in ilsclf was a sign of her social dcmotion. Shc had to marry and had to producc children, preferably małe children. She fell froin a body-mind combine to a mere physical existence. “This allegory of the Fali was the most common mcdicval intcrprclation. One of its consequences was that the figurę of woman in mcdicval literaturę could carry an allegorical signification of ‘flesh’ in the broad sense of the term employed here (as camal knowledge or dcsirc).^#,M0 In the Mah&bh&rata the nymph Paikacuda, a woman is madę to say that women dcrive greater pleasure from sex than men. This, of course, is not confined to wedded sex.

Actually what gave the husband an upper hand in the conjugal life of a couplc was that the control of the wifc’s sexualily was enlirely handed over to her husband. She had no say in the matter. Shc could act somewhat perverscly up to a point as when the sagę Agaslya’s bride, the princess Lopamundra stipulatcd that she would yield herself to him only on a bed similar to the one she slept on in her father \ pałace. But beyond that she had absolutcly no say in the matter. The old bachclor BhTsma on his dcath-bed wams Yudhislhira that woman was the most vicious crcalure on earth, shc had a serpent, a sharp razor and poison combincd in her person. To some cxtcnt it rctlcets the małe altitude to woman. Conjugality could hardly flourish if the wifc is regarded as a venomous crcature. As a person prcdominanlly symbolizing the body, the wife became an objcct of social sneer and condcsccnsion, yet ambivalcntly also an object to dcsirc. We remember Kama ’s obsenc gcslurc (in the Kaurava court) to signify his desire for Draupadl. The husband, too, desired her but took no cognizancc of rcciprocity or its absencc in his partner. This reduces conjugality, at least on viial part of it, to the Iow bestia! level. This expression of power ovcr the wife’s sexuality is indicatcd in many of the epic aneedotes where unwilling partners are eoereed