son one conquereth the three worlds. By a son’s
son, one enjoyeth eternity. And by a grandson’s
son great-grand-fathers enjoy everlasting happiness.
She is a true wife who is skilful in household affairs.
She is a true wife who hath borne a son. She
is a true wife whose heart is devoted to her lord.
She is a true wife who knoweth none but her lord.
The wife is a man’s half. The wife is the
first of friends. The wife is the root of religion,
profit, and desire. The wife is the root of salvation.
They that have wives can perform religious acts.
They that have wives can lead domestic lives.
They that have wives have the means to be cheerful.
They that have wives can achieve good fortune.
Sweet-speeched wives are friends on occasions of joy.
They are as fathers on occasions of religious acts.
They are mothers in sickness and woe. Even in
the deep woods to a traveller a wife is his refreshment
and solace. He that hath a wife is trusted by
all. A wife, therefore, is one’s most valuable
possession. Even when the husband leaving this
world goeth into the region of Yama, it is the devoted
wife that accompanies him thither. A wife going
before waits for the husband. But if the husband
goeth before, the chaste wife followeth close.
For these reasons, O king, doth marriage exist.
The husband enjoyth the companionship of the wife both
in this and in the other worlds. It hath been
said by learned persons that one is himself born as
one’s son. Therefore, a man whose wife hath
borne a son should look upon her as his mother.
Beholding the face of the son one hath begotten upon
his wife, like his own face in a mirror, one feeleth
as happy as a virtuous man, on attaining to heaven.
Men scorched by mental grief, or suffering under bodily
pain, feel as much refreshed in the companionship
of their wives as a perspiring person in a cool bath.
No man, even in anger, should ever do anything that
is disagreeable to his wife, seeing that happiness,
joy, and virtue,—everything dependeth on
the wife. A wife is the sacred field in which
the husband is born himself. Even Rishis cannot
create creatures without women. What happiness
is greater than what the father feeleth when the son
running towards him, even though his body be covered
with dust, claspeth his limbs? Why then dost
thou treat with indifference such a son, who hath
approached thee himself and who casteth wistful glances
towards thee for climbing thy knees? Even ants
support their own eggs without destroying them; then
why shouldst not thou, a virtuous man that thou art,
support thy own child? The touch of soft sandal
paste, of women, of (cool) water is not so agreeable
as the touch of one’s own infant son locked in
one’s embrace. As a Brahmana is the foremost
of all bipeds, a cow, the foremost of all quadrupeds,
a protector, the foremost of all superiors, so is the
son the foremost of all objects, agreeable to the touch.
Let, therefore, this handsome child touch thee in
embrace. There is nothing in the world more agreeable