THE RISE . . . . . . . . . FOR IT ? 127
his wife, both in season and out of season, in this world and in the next. V. 150. She must always be cheerful, clever in the management of her household affairs, careful in cleaning her utensils, and economical in expenditure.
This the Hindus regard as a very lofty ideal for a woman !!!
As though to put a coping stone on his edifice of disabilities of women Manu declared a new rule that killing a woman was only an Upapataka i.e. it was a minor offence.
XI. 67. Liquor, slaying women, Sudras, Vaishyas, or Kshatriyas, and a theists (are all) minor offences.
One can quite understand why Manu should have said that the killing of a Sudras, Vaishya or a Kshatriya was only an Upapataka. He was trying to establish that the Brahmin was superior to all these and only the killing of a Brahmin was Mahapataka. But why did he not apply the same rule to women ? Only because a woman, in the eyes of Manu, was a thing of no value.
In the face of these quotations can anybody doubt that it was Manu who was responsible for the degradation of women in India ? Most people are perhaps aware of this. But they do not seem to know two things. They do not know what is peculiar in Manu. There is nothing new or startling in the Laws of Manu about woman. They are the views of the Brahmins ever since Brahmanism was born in India. Before Manu they existed only as a matter of social theory. What Manu did was to convert what was a social theory into the law of the State. The second thing they do not know is the reason which led Manu to impose these disabilities upon women, Sudras and women were the two chief sections of the Aryan Society which were flocking to join the religion of the Buddha and thereby undermining the foundation of Brahmanic Religion. Manu wanted to stem the tide of women flowing in direction of Buddhism.