A rest in passing through life's wilderness.”
The rights and opportunities of woman are strikingly illustrated by many of the legends of their ancient epics. For instance, we read of the Svayamvara [pg 145] of the lovely princess Draupadi. It was the occasion when she had attained womanhood and was entitled to the right to choose her own husband. How graphically are the royal suitors described as they press their claims to her heart and hand in knightly tournament. It is one of those scenes which reveal woman in the possession of some of her most queenly rights and attractions.
The ancient ideals of womanly character have come down the centuries writ large in their songs and annals; and these ideals are today held as dearly, and are loved and sung with as much ardour, as at any time in the history of India.
Every boy and girl of that land, today, knows the lovely Sita, wife of the noble and heroic Rama,—how, while in the power of the terrible Ravana, and at risk of life, she withstood every temptation and lived in unspotted purity and in supreme devotion and faithfulness to her royal lord.
Who does not know of the faithful Saguntala, whose legend is woven into one of the most beautiful and touching love stories the world has ever known. This drama was the first translation from Sanskrit into the English tongue and elicited the astonishment and lively admiration of such a man as Goethe.
India has always boasted of the constancy and devotion of the beautiful Savitri to her beloved Sattyavân. After the death of her husband, she followed his soul into the spirit-world with fearless devotion and pleaded with the King of Death with so much passion and persistence for his return to life that he was finally restored to her in youthful vigour.
These are some of the stock illustrations of the model wife used everywhere and at all times in India. And they have had an extensive and wonderful influence in the molding of wifely ideals.
It is, as we see, a glorification of devotion, faithfulness, constancy—traits that have always beautified the character of the Hindu woman. It is true that, apart from her husband and from the kitchen, woman has had few ideals urged upon her in that great country. Her ambitions have not crossed the doorsteps of her house and home. She is measured entirely by her relation to her husband or children. She is her lord's companion and servant. Love to him is the wand which alone can transform her life into gold. Her usefulness and her glory are the reflections of his pleasure and of his satisfaction in her. She has no separate existence. Apart from man, she is an absolute nonentity. And yet, within the sphere which has been granted to her, she has shone with a wonderful radiance and with a charm which reminds us often of some of Shakespeare's beautiful womanly creations.
The physical attractions of woman have always, of course, captivated the sterner sex in India, as in other lands. Her beauty is lavishly described and painted in warm colours through all Hindu literature. And she is physically beautiful; she will compare favourably with the fair ones of any land in womanly grace, in beauty of figure, and in bewitching charm of manner.
But the standard of womanly grace and beauty is not precisely the same there as it is with us in the West. A Hindu and an American have different [pg 147] ideals of personal beauty. Though the Aryan type of countenance may not largely differ East and West, there are touches of expression and shades of beauty which correspond respectively to the different ideals in both lands. May they not have created the ideals themselves?