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FRAGMENTS OF A PRISONER'S DIARY
the houschold variety. Granted that godly status, why should they hanker after worldly rights and privileges ? These transitory, and, therefore negligible, things are not included in the perfect cquality of women in Hindu society. Their lives are consummated in the mystic, indissoluble, union with their husbands. They are above the selfishness of the desire for any individual social or spiritual cxistence. Lovc, with them, is not lust, degraded to the level of carnal relations. It is a spiritual passion for giving ; their own selves being the best of the gifts, they lay it at the feet of the beloved, who may not reciprocate the passion in a similar way. They love without wanting to be loved. They give without asking for anything in return. They find a pleasure in giving, in loving. The Hindu woman is the incarnation of selflessness. No wonder that men should appreciate her virtue and enshrine her in the temple of domesticity, where she enjoys endless privileges including the bearing of unwanted children. This fiction of a spiritual union gilds the galling chains of chattelslavery.
All these fables, fictions and lyrics, however, cannot make the sccker after truth blind to the fact that the codes of Manu deprive women of all independence. Always, throughout her life, she must be under the protection of some male or other. Protection is an euphemistic term for subordination. As a matter of fact, Manu specifies the
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