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DEVDUTT PATTANAIK traces via Ramayana and Mahabharata, how patriarchy came to overturn natural laws that uphold female power
As Alpha in nature, all female forms are valuable, as each one creates a new life. Only the strongest or smartest male gets the chance to impregnate females.The female may either pair with one male all her life, or she may just present herself to him during the mating season.
But the male, mostly, has to compete with other males for her attention by exposing himself to risk and injury when he fights rival males or when he displays his colours or plumage, in full view of predators.
However, among humans, the effort has been to overturn this law of nature, which is discernible in the different forms of vivaha or marriage, found in the puranas.
1.Prajapati-vivaha, where the boy approaches the girl’s father for her hand in marriage.
2.Brahma-vivaha,where the girl’s father approaches the boy for his hand in marriage, and even offers dowry.
3.Deva-vivaha, where the daughter is given to the man as fee for services rendered to the father.
4.Rishi-vivaha,where the daughter is given to a sage along with a bullock (beast of burden) and a cow (source of food) in order to enable the sage to perform yajna.
5. Gandharva-vivaha, or marriage based on love of man for woman, that does not care for social sanction.
6. Asura-vivaha, where the girl is purchased.
7. Rakshasa-vivaha, where the girl is abducted.
8. Pisacha-vivaha, where the girl is raped while she is asleep. In the Mahabharata, Shantanu cannot get wives he loves until he gives them what they want. His first wife, Ganga, demands complete freedom, which includes killing their newborns.
The second wife, Satyavati, demands that her children, not Ganga’s, are declared heirs. Satyavati gets daughters-in-law very differently: she orders her stepson, Devavrata, to simply kidnap them. Kunti selects her husband while Madri is purchased. Gandhari’s father is approached for her hand in marriage, but she is not told that her husband is blind. Kunti’s daughter-in-law, Draupadi, is a trophy of an archery con-
test and ends up being shared by the five Pandava brothers.Thus, we see a clear shift in the status of women from one generation to another.
The Mahabharata informs us that there was a time when women and men were free to go to whoever they pleased. Apsaras make love to rishis and simply walk away, often leaving them to take care of their young. Urvashi curses Arjuna that his genitals will fall off because he does not satisfy her.
The Bhagavata Purana tells the story of Usha, a princess who kidnaps Krishna’s grandson, Aniruddha, because he is so handsome.
Also in the Mahabharata is the story of the origin of marriage. Shvetaketu discovers his mother in the arms of another man, but the father, Uddalaka, is not upset. Shvetaketu wonders how he can be sure that he is his father’s son. So, he institutes the law of marriage that requires the wife to be faithful to her husband. But he can ask her to go to another man if he is unable to impregnate her himself.
In a society that wanted all men to have wives, women’s freedom had to be curtailed. Laws had to be created so that she did not leave her husband for a better or more desirable man.
Chastity of women served to allay male anxiety over their incompetence and inadequacy. With a wife at home obliged to be faithful to him, the man had nothing to fear. His fidelity was not a matter of law, but a matter of choice. When he was faithful, he became worthy of adoration,like Rama, the only divinity in Hindu mythology to have the title of ekam-patni-vrata, faithful to one wife.
In the Adbhuta Ramayana, Sita is described as slaying a demon with a hundred heads, suggesting that she is capable of easily slaying Ravana who has only 10, but chooses to downplay her power to establish Rama as God. But, modern storytellers — even on TV — prefer versions that portray her as a weak woman who breaks down when Rama abandons her. They refuse to highlight Sita, who comfortably raises her children alone in the forest, just like Shakuntala, Hidimbi and Kunti.
Apparently, men still want women to be victims, needing to be rescued, as dependent creatures, unlike the female in nature, who is quite capable of taking care of herself and her family.
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