422 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
My honourable friend said in connection with the management of property that she knows of women who are better managers of property ...,
The Honourable Shri N. V. Gadgil (Minister of Works, Mines and Power): Of men also !
Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : Exactly, of men also. I do not think there is any single married man in this House who will dispute that proposition. In the household she is the ruler: she is all in all. The tallest of us. The Law Minister or his honourable colleague will have to crouch before her however much he may thunder here. There you are ruled not by the rod, but by a strange sort of a whip, a soft, sweet silken cord made up of filaments of love which takes off all harshness and roughness, and menfolk have cheerfully submitted to her rule. She is the queen of the household. Many married people, I think most married people, would frankly admit that.
Shri L. Krishnaswami Bharathi: That is how we have cheated them.
Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra: We are now going to cheat them by this Code. Do you think the greatest justice will be done to them if you simply give them right to property. Mr. Chairman, according to the Hindu notions, a girl has a distinct position, a role entirely different from that of a son. Any honourable member who has read Sanskrit literature or has any knowledge of it—I cannot make any presumption either way, whether most people know it or no one knows it . . .
An Honourable Member: The Law Member knows it.
Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : He may know it, he is a scholar. Well, in Sakuntala of our immortal poet, after the marriage of Sakuntala and her departure to her husband’s place, there occurs a Sloka which is classical and which gives you in a nutshell how the Hindu lawgivers and the Hindu society look upon their girlhood. Immediately after Sakuntala left the hermitage for her husband’s place, sage Kanwa said, “Today I feel relieved” :
“ Artho Hi Kanya Parakiya Eva Tarn Adya Sampreshya Pratigrahita. Jati mamayang Bishadah Prakamam Pratyarpit Nyasa Ivantaratma."
“This my heart, my inner self today has been relieved of a heavy burden and I get that inner pleasure of relief.” What was that burden ? A daughter in the family is like a trust deposit of somebody else’s