‘One as the word and its meaning’ Abirami Andhadai
Women are regarded as Mother and The Taittriya says first respect is for Mother,
Matru Devo Bhava.Great Rishis like Kathyayani,Gargi were women.
“”What differentiates the Hindu brilliance in logic and rational thought from its Hellenistic parallel is that Hindus were very aware of the intellect’s limitations. They understood that only the feminine intuitive mind was capable of grasping the deepest spiritual truths in powerful flashes on intuition.”
Some of them are.
Gargi Vachaknavi – A female Rishi who challenged Yajnavalkya on questions relating to the human soul.
Maitreyi.
Lopamudra – Wife of Sage Agastya
Andal – A 8th century Tamil saint-poet and one of the twelve Alvars.
Karaikkal Ammeiyar – A 6th century Tamil saint-poet, one of the sixty three Nayanmars
Mangayarkkarasiyar – A Pandya Queen, wife of King Nedumaranan, one of the sixty three Nayanmars
Isaignaniyaar – A Tamil saint-poet, one of sixty three Nayanmars
Avvaiyar – A Sangam period Tamil saint-poet, ethicist, social reformer.
Akka Mahadevi – A prominent figure and Kannada poet of the 12th century Veerashaiva Bhakti movement.
Mirabai – Hindu mystical poet and a devotee of Krishna whose bhajans are sung all over India.
Lalleshwari – Hindu saint-poetess, and a mystic of the Kashmiri Shaivites.
“”A girl also should be brought up and educated with great effort and care.” (Mahanirvana Tantra); and “All forms of knowledge are aspects of Thee; and all women throughout the world are Thy forms.” (Devi Mahatmya)
Women, who so desired, could undergo the sacred thread ceremony or ‘Upanayana‘ (a sacrament to pursue Vedic studies), which is only meant for males even to this day. The mention of female scholars and sages of the Vedic age like Vac, Ambhrni, Romasa, Gargi, Khona in the Vedic lore corroborates this view. These highly intelligent and greatly learned women, who chose the path of Vedic studies, were called ‘brahmavadinis’, and women who opted out of education for married life were called ‘sadyovadhus’. Co-education seems to have existed in this period and both the sexes got equal attention from the teacher. Moreover, ladies from the Kshatriya caste received martial arts courses and arms training”
Wifehood in the Vedic Era
As in present, after marriage, the girl became a ‘grihini’ (wife) and was considered ‘ardhangini’ or one half of her husband’s being. Both of them constituted the ‘griha’ or home, and she was considered its ‘samrajni’ (queen or mistress) and had an equal share in the performance of religious rites.
Divorce, Remarriage & Widowhood
Divorce and remarriage of women were allowed under very special conditions. If a woman lost her husband, she was not forced to undergo the merciless practices that cropped up in later years. She was not compelled to tonsure her head, nor was she forced to wear red sari and commit ‘sahagamana’ or dying on the funeral pyre of the dead husband. If they chose to, they could live a life of a ‘sanyasin’ or hermit, after the husband passed away.
”
Polyandry
One can only grudgingly admit that there are few references of polyandry in the Vedas. In the
marriage hymn of Rigveda
xxxi
, Surya is married to Aswins. The marriage of Rudasi with Maruts
is also find place in it.
xxxii
There are some passages in which the wife is mentioned in connection
with husband in plural.
xxxiii
It is interesting to note that later Vedic literature do not approve
polyandry though legalize the polygamy.
xxxiv
Widow Marriage
As in the case of a widower, the widows are allowed to marry again. It may sound strange, but
the funeral hymn in Vedas exhorts widow to marry the one who holds her hand is willing to
marry.
xxxv
It also shows that the brother of the deceased took charge of the widow. Atharveda
too mentions of women marrying second time.
xxxvi
The passages do not suggest that the women
should marry only her brother-in-law.
xxxvii
Sati
Atharvaveda
xxxviii
, however, shows a strange funeral ritual of the Vedic age, which has preserved
some formalities similar to the custom of Sati. It depicts a widow lying by the side of her
husband’s corpse on the funeral pyre and being asked to come down. A prayer was offered that
she should lead a prosperous life, enjoying the bliss of children and wealth. The passage is open
for interpretation either way.
Niyog
/Levirate
Women’s right to have children was granted by the practice of
Niyoga
/Levirate.
xxxix
As there are
few instances of remarriage of widows, and in the absence of clear injunction of widow-
marriages, one can safely assume that this practice was more popular than remarriages.
Religious and Social life of Women
The Vedic society was quite free and did not pose much restriction upon the free movement of
their women. They were educated along with boys of their own age, free to move with them,
5
approach them for marriages and took part in sports and extra curricular activities, of course
within the accepted norms and customs of the society. We do not come across the system of
purdah in the Vedic society. Even the life after marriage does not change much in their social
interaction. The marriage hymn itself requires th
e bride to be shown to all the assembled guests
at the end of the marriage rituals.
xl
The practice still continues in Hindu marriages. It is also
hoped that the bride will be able to speak with
composure in public assemblies down to her old
age.
xli
The presence of ladies in social and public gathering therefore, was a normal feature in
Vedic time.
xlii
They were quite free to associate them
selves with others on the occasion of
festivals and rejoicing.
xliii
The Vedic Aryans were
mostly occupied in military activities
as they were engaged in the task of
carving a homeland for themselves. They had, therefore, to rely upon a greater degree of
cooperation from their women folk. Women are depicted in Vedic literature as taking part in
agriculture and in manufacture of bows, arrows and other war materials. They were also engaged
in weaving cloth, dying, embroidery and basket-making. They were also engaged in teaching,
independent of their man-counterpart. The cultivation of fine arts like music, dancing and
painting was the domain of the women only. Musical reciting of the Sama-hymns was the special
function of ladies.
xliv
The Vedas regard women as untouchable during her monthly period. This temporary impurity is
assigned to their taking over from India one third of the sin of Brahmana murder, which he
incurred when he killed Vritra.
xlv
Child bearing is regarded as the special function of women,
and evil spirits are believed to be very of anxious to visit them during their periods to prevent
conception. They may also harm her husband. One stanza in Vedic hymn prays that the bride
should have no evil eye and hopes that she would not be the cause of the sudden death of her
husband.
xlvi
During the time of confinement, the women are regarded as impure as the
phenomenon of menstruation is considered to be repeated at the child birth.
The largest congregation of Women in a single place at one time was witnessed in Attukallu BhagavathyAmman Temple, Kerala,India.
Attukkal Bhagavathy Temple, Attukkal
The Legend.
A few centuries ago, the head of Mulluveettil family was met with a young girl who asked him to help her cross the Killi river in which he was performing his ritualistic prayers. The Karanavar (family head) knew it was no ordinary girl, because of her charm and charisma. He bowed before her and willingly took her to the other side of the river. He invited her to his home nearby and the whole family was preparing to receive this girl. However, they couldn’t find her as she had disappeared by the time Mulluveettil family was ready to receive her.
The Karanavar and his family were a little puzzled. The Karanavar saw the girl once again in his dream, in the same day as he saw the little girl. The girl appeared as an icon and told him to give her an abode in the nearby Kavu (a grove where shrubs and wild animals including snakes are left undisturbed). She told him that he would see three lines at a specific point in the kavu and she wanted her abode erected there.
With joy, the old man reached the Kavu and to his surprise, he found three lines marked on the ground. He knew it was a sacred spot and he wasted no time erecting a temple. The temple became the abode of the goddess, who later came to be known as Attukal Devi (Attukal Amma). Local devotees offered their prayers in this temple and soon the fame of this temple spread far and wide.
The people also offered to renovate the temple and a bigger temple with a new icon was installed. The goddess was represented as a woman with four arms, each bearing a spear, sword, skull and shield. The then high priest of Badarinath Temple led the consecration ceremony.
The girl that appeared before the Karanavar of Mulluveettil family is known to be Kannagi (Kannaki). Kannagi is the famous heroine of Chipathikaram, a Tamil epic written by Elenkovadikal. She is the incarnation of Sree Parvathy, the consort of Lord Siva
Attukal Pongala (Attukal Ponkala) is the most reputed festival of this temple, which attracts devotees from all parts of India. Tens of hundreds of women devotees throng together on the day of Pongala with their offerings to the Goddess and to seek blessings. The festival commences on Karthika day of Malayalam month Makaram-Kumbham (February-March).
Attukal Pongala
Pongala festival is a ten-day long festival and on the 9th day of the festival is the famous Pongala. On that day, tens of hundreds of women throng to the temple to offer pongala in earthen pots. Pongala is a rice porridge, which boils over. The rush of women is so intense that the Pongala ground spreads outside the temple premises and into the public roads, and the courtyards of houses, government offices, bus and train station, etc…
Women offer pongala in a radius of about 7 Km, essentially turning the whole of Thiruvananthapuram City into the holy grounds for the women to offer Pongala. All the transport buses plying from the city are reserved for women on Pongala day. No number of words can do justice to frenzy of the day’s festivities, which wholly belongs to women devotees.
The Attukal Pongala festival also reached Guinness Book of World Records of largest annual gathering of women, when 1.5 million (15 Lakhs) women offered pongala in February 23, 1997 and its achieved by 2.5 million (25 Lakhs) women offered pongala on March 10, 2009. It is estimated that about 3.7 million (37 Lakhs) women offered pongala in February 26, 2013. The number of women devotees reaching this place increases every year.
How to Reach.
Attukal Bhagavathy Temple is just 2 Km from the main city of Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram) and is located at a rural-looking area, although the surroundings are highly urbanized.
By Road : Trivandrum Central Bus Station located at Thampanoor is about 2 Km from the shrine and the City Bus Station located at EastFort is about 1.5 Km form the shrine.
By Air : The nearest airport is Thiruvananthapuram International Airport, located at Valiyathura is about 7 Km from the shrine. Many international air carriers operate daily international flights to Middle East, Male and Sri Lanka from Thiruvananthapuram.
Considered the biggest congregation of women in the world, Attukal Pongala is popularly referred to as the Sabrimala of women. While the Attukal temple is overflowing with devotees, women across the city can also be found with their makeshift brick stoves and earthen pots, cooking their offerings. A sweet dish called “payasam” with rice, jaggery and banana are part of the offerings.
Yet when a mention of the term domestic violence crops up, it always is the violence perpetrated by Men against Women.
What about Men subjected to domestic violence by women?
Indian law is silent on this issue , so are laws the world over.
“Definitions.- In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,-
(a) ” aggrieved person” means any woman who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the respondent and who alleges to have been subjected to any act of domestic violence by the respondent;” Domestic Violence Act India.
Domestic Violence against Men.
Findings that women are as violent as men have been termed “gender symmetry”.[1][9][10][11][12][13]
A 32-nation study of university students “revealed an overwhelming body of evidence that bidirectional violence is the predominant pattern of perpetration; and this study, along with evidence from many other studies (Medeiros & Straus, 2007), indicates that the etiology of PV is mostly parallel for men and women.”[14]
Domestic Violence against Men.
Straus and Gelles found that in couples reporting spousal violence, 27% of the time the man struck the first blow; in 24% of cases, the woman initiated the violence. The rest of the time, the violence was mutual, with both partners brawling. The results were the same even when the most severe episodes of violence were analyzed. In order to counteract claims that the reporting data was skewed, female-only surveys were conducted, asking females to self-report, and the data was the same.[15] The simple tally of physical acts is typically found to be similar in those studies that examine both directions, but some studies show that male violence may be more serious. Male violence may do more damage than female violence;[16] women are more likely to be injured and/or hospitalized. Female partners are more likely to be killed by their male partners than the reverse (62.1% to 37.9% per Department of Justice study), and women in general are more likely to be killed by their spouses than by all other types of assailants combined.[17] From a data set of 6,200 cases of spousal abuse in the Detroit area of the US in 1978-79, a study found that men used weapons 25% of the time while female assailants used weapons 86% of the time; 74% of men sustained injury and of these 84% required medical care.[18] Other studies report that female perpetrated domestic abuse is more common than male among adolescents.[19][20](wiki)
Signs of Domestic Violence against Men.
You might be experiencing domestic violence if your partner:
Calls you names, insults you or puts you down
Prevents you from going to work or school
Stops you from seeing family members or friends
Tries to control how you spend money, where you go or what you wear
Acts jealous or possessive or constantly accuses you of being unfaithful
Gets angry when drinking alcohol or using drugs
Threatens you with violence or a weapon
Hits, kicks, shoves, slaps, chokes or otherwise hurts you, your children or your pets
Assaults you while you’re sleeping, you’ve been drinking or you’re not paying attention to make up for a difference in strength
Forces you to have sex or engage in sexual acts against your will
Blames you for his or her violent behavior or tells you that you deserve it
National Helpline
01823 334244
If you are a man suffering Domestic Abuse or Violence call this number.
Our confidential helpline is manned from Monday to Friday 10am – 4pm and 7pm – 9pm.
Helpline services for the Deaf are provided through Text Relay. Visitwww.textrelay.org for details.
Normal BT rates apply If you are in immediate danger, call 999
Philip Cook’s book Abused Men: The Hidden Side of Domestic Violence offers an account of the politics of statistics across four decades of research on intimate partner violence, chronicling the ways in which the battering of men is overlooked and under-discussed. Cook points out that women make up 20% of domestic violence arrests and, in the reissued version of the book released in 2009, shows how these figures have changed over time, reflecting reporting practices rather than a dramatic increase in the levels of violence. Cook cites a survey sponsored by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration of abused women seeking shelter in Kentucky found that among violent couples, 38% of attacks were by ones where women reported that they had initiated a violent act.
Unsurprisingly, men are far less likely than women to report incidents where they have been injured as it might call into question the status of their manhood. For men who did not hit back, retaliate, or perform an evasive action, there remains an expectation among many of the men themselves that they should have been able to fend off what transpired. Counselors note that boys and men who have been the victims of violence have a hard time accepting the label of victim. Feminized associations with victim language makes it difficult for men and boys who experience violence to seek and accept help.
Men’s subconscious self-esteem related to female partner’s successes and failures
WASHINGTON — Deep down, men may not bask in the glory of their successful wives or girlfriends. While this is not true of women, men’s subconscious self-esteem may be bruised when their spouse or girlfriend excels, says a study published by the American Psychological Association.
It didn’t matter if their significant other was an excellent hostess or intelligent, men were more likely to feel subconsciously worse about themselves when their female partner succeeded than when she failed, according to the study published online in the APA Journal of Personality and Social Psychology®. However, women’s self-esteem was not affected by their male partners’ successes or failures, according to the research, which looked at heterosexual Americans and Dutch.
“It makes sense that a man might feel threatened if his girlfriend outperforms him in something they’re doing together, such as trying to lose weight,” said the study’s lead author, Kate Ratliff, PhD, of the University of Florida. “But this research found evidence that men automatically interpret a partner’s success as their own failure, even when they’re not in direct competition.”
Men subconsciously felt worse about themselves when they thought about a time when their female partner thrived in a situation in which they had failed, according to the findings. The researchers studied 896 people in five experiments.
In one experiment, 32 couples from the University of Virginia were given what was described as a “test of problem solving and social intelligence” and then told that their partner scored either in the top or bottom 12 percent of all university students. Hearing that their partner scored high or low on the test did not affect what the researchers called participants’ explicit self-esteem — i.e., how they said they felt. ..
Findings were similar in two more studies conducted in the Netherlands. The Netherlands boasts one of the smallest gender gaps in labor, education and politics, according to the United Nations’ Gender Equality Index. However, like American men, Dutch men who thought about their romantic partner’s success subconsciously felt worse about themselves than men who thought about their partner’s failure, according to both studies. They said they felt fine but the test of implicit self-esteem revealed otherwise.
In the final two experiments, conducted online, 657 U.S. participants, 284 of whom were men, were asked to think about a time when their partner had succeeded or failed. For example, some participants were asked to think about their partner’s social success or failure, such as being a charming host at a party, or a more intellectual achievement or failure. In one study, participants were told to think of a time when their partner succeeded or failed at something at which they had succeeded or failed. When comparing all the results, the researchers found that it didn’t matter if the achievements or failures were social, intellectual or related to participants’ own successes or failures — men subconsciously still felt worse about themselves when their partner succeeded than when she failed. However, men’s implicit self-esteem took a bigger hit when they thought about a time when their partner succeeded at something while they had failed.
Researchers also looked at how relationship satisfaction affected self-esteem. Women in these experiments reported feeling better about their relationship when they thought about a time their partner succeeded rather than a time when their partner failed but men did not.
Article: “Gender Differences in Implicit Self-Esteem Following a Romantic Partner’s Success or Failure,” Kate A. Ratliff, PhD, University of Florida, and Shigehiro Oishi, PhD, University of Virginia; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, online Aug. 5, 2013.
Kate Ratliff can be contacted by email or by phone at (352) 273-2155.’
Let me add a few more things what Indian Men feel bad about women, though they would not admit it- at the risk of being called a ‘male chauvinist Pig‘
1.Wife Drinking, I am excluding Men who encourage wives to drink..
2. Wearing a skimpy dress.
3.Berating Husband in front f relatives, especially her relatives.
4.Commenting ‘ That Man/Hero is cute’
5.Talking incessantly of her parents, especially her sister’s husband.
6.Calling husband by Name in front of others.
7.Moving around in a Nightie at Home, without taking bath.
8.Over make up and refusal to Breastfeed the child.
9.Pretending to be Rich while being not.
10.Nagging about Husband’s Relatives.
I am excluding the liberated women of advanced thoughts in Lifestyle who engage themselves in partying, entrusting children to only Babysitters, and who , in general,consider Marriage is a Social necessity and nothing more.
Awaiting brickbats , as usual.
For a change, please some other choicest epithets, other than, MCP as I am eager to improve my vocabulary.
male Species have to compete to get the attention of the female to propagate Species.
One may notice that in animal kingdom , it is the Male Species that do all the things to attract the Female and only in Man the reverse seems to happen.
Underlying all this is the fact that women are as much interested in Sex if not more,
This is proved by a recent study.
Excerpts:
”
But why don’t we say that women, too, are animals? Meredith Chivers, a psychologist trying to discover this, carried out research using a plethysmograph: a miniature bulb and light sensor placed inside the vagina. Semi-reclining, each of her female subjects watched an array of porn on an old, bulky computer monitor. The 2in-long tube of the plethysmograph beams light against the vaginal walls and reads the illumination that bounces back. In this way, it measures the blood flow to the vagina and finds out, at a primitive level, what turns women on.
As they enrolled in the study, Chivers’ subjects identified themselves as straight or lesbian. They were shown images of sex between men and women, women and women, men and men, and a pair of bonobos (a species of ape). The subjects, straight and lesbian, were turned on right away by all of it, including the copulating apes. While they watched, they also held a keypad on which they rated their own feelings of arousal…
As for the bonobos, the genitals of both gay and straight men reacted to them the same way they did to the landscapes, to the pannings of mountains and plateaus. And with the men, the objective and subjective were in sync. Bodies and minds told the same story.
How to explain the conflict between what the women claimed and what their genitals said? Were the women either consciously diminishing or unconsciously blocking out the fact that a vast scope of things stoked them instantly toward lust?
The discord within Chivers’ readings converged with the results of a study by Terri Fisher, a psychologist at Ohio State University, who asked 200 female and male undergraduates to complete a questionnaire dealing with masturbation and the use of porn. The subjects were split into groups and wrote their answers under three different conditions: either they were instructed to hand the finished questionnaire to a fellow student, who waited just beyond an open door and was able to watch the subjects work; or they were given explicit assurances that their answers would be kept anonymous; or they were hooked up to a fake polygraph machine, with bogus electrodes taped to their hands, forearms and necks.
The male replies were about the same under each of the three conditions, but for the females the circumstances were crucial. Many women in the first group said they’d never masturbated, never checked out anything X-rated. The women who were told they would have strict confidentiality answered yes a lot more. And those who thought they were wired to a lie detector replied almost identically to the men.
Fisher’s research pointed to wilful denial. Yet, Chivers believed, something more subtle had to be at play. In journals, she found glimmers of evidence that women are less connected to the sensations of their bodies than men are, not just erotically but in other ways. Was this a product of genetic or societal codes? Were girls and women somehow taught to keep a psychic distance from their physical selves?
In a new experiment, Chivers played pornographic audio tapes for straight female subjects. She wanted to know, partly, whether spoken stories would have a different effect on the blood, on the mind. The scenes her subjects heard varied not only by whether they featured a man or a woman in the seductive role, but by whether the scenario involved someone unknown, known well as a friend, or known long as a lover.
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