________________
THE IDEAL OF INDIAN WOMANHOOD
obediently perform all the wifely duties laid down by religious codes and social customs. To bear children is the inost fundamental of those duties. So, the possibility of resistance is altogether rulei out, if wives are to be up to the ideals of Hindu womanhood. The sui? Inisin bonum of these is complete subservicnce to the husband, who is to be served, pleased and worshipped as a god, even as the God. If the deified husbands are so perversc as to find pleasure in sex-intercourse, as they usually arc, what are the wives to do? They have no choice. The freedom to love or not to love is not a part of the noble ideal of Hindu womanhood. It is a religious duty, indeed obligation, of the woman to serve and satisfy the husband in cvery way, whether she loves him or not; and what is still worse, whether he loves her or not.
The impractical proposition for controlling scx-intercourse, and the dogmatic moral injunctions of Gandhi, provoked the following protest from the rebellious youth: “You want everyone to become moral in order to change the world. I do not exactly know what you mean by morality
whether you confine it to matters sexual, whether it covers the whole field of human conduct. I suspect the former, because I don't see you pointing out to your capitalist and landlord friends the great injustice and harm they are doing by making huge profits at the expense of labourers and peasants. While you are never tired of casti
115
