In ancient times, the position of woman in India was one of power coupled with honour. Today the power remains, but the honour has been largely eliminated.
1. In ancient Vedic times woman enjoyed many distinctions and revealed great aptitude. She joined her husband in the offering of domestic sacrifices and sat as queen in the home. Some of the sacred hymns of the Rigveda were made by her and have come down these thirty centuries as a beautiful testimony to her intellectual brightness and aspiration, and as an evidence of the honour in which she was held.
Five centuries later this beautiful description was given of her in the Mahabarata:
“A wife is half the man, his truest friend;
A loving wife is a perpetual spring
Of virtue, pleasure, wealth; a faithful wife
Is his best aid in seeking heavenly bliss;
A sweet speaking wife is a companion
In solitude, a father in advice,
A mother in all seasons of distress,