ON WOMEN/WIFE AND SONS

ON WOMEN/WIFE

• ON WOMEN/WIFE
• A wicked wife, a false friend, a saucy servant and living in a house with a serpent in it are nothing but death. (CNS: 1.5).
• A wise man should marry a virgin of a respectable family even if she is deformed. He should not marry one of a low-class family, through beauty. Marriage in a family of equal status is preferable. (CNS: 1.14).
• Give your daughter in marriage to a good family, engage your son in learning, see that your enemy comes to grief, and engage your friends in dharma.( CNS: 3.3)
• When one is consumed by the sorrows of life, three things give him relief: offspring, a wife, and the company of the Lord's devotees.( CNS:4.10)
• She is a true wife who is clean (suci), expert, chaste, pleasing to the husband, and truthful. (CNS:4.13)
• What is it that escapes the observation of poets? What is that act women are incapable of doing? What will drunken people not prate? (CNS: 10.4) (None).
• One single object (a woman) appears in three different ways: to the man who practices austerity it appears as a corpse, to the sensual it appears as a woman, and to the dogs as a lump of flesh. (CNS: 14.15).
• O lady, why are you gazing downward? Has something of yours fallen on the ground? (She replies) O fool, can you not understand the pearl of my youth has slipped away? (CNS:17.20)
• If we take Chanakya’s maxim ‘What is that act women are incapable of doing?’in a positive spirit, for the woman, probably ‘the sky is the limit’.
  
• ON SONS
• He whose son is obedient to him, whose wife's conduct is in accordance with his wishes, and who is content with his riches, has his heaven here on earth. (CNS: 2.3).
• They alone are sons who are devoted to their father. He is a father who supports his sons. He is a friend in whom we can confide, and she only is a wife in whose company the husband feels contented and peaceful. (CNS: 2.4).
• Wise men should always bring up their sons in various moral ways, for children who have knowledge of niti-sastra and are well-behaved become a glory to their family. (CNS: 2.10).
  v Those parents who do not educate their sons are their enemies; for as is a crane among swans, so are ignorant sons in a public assembly. (CNS: 2.11).
• Many a bad habit is developed through overindulgence, and many a good one by chastisement, therefore beat your son as well as your pupil; never indulge them. ("Spare the rod and spoil the child.") (CNS: 2.12).
• As a whole forest becomes fragrant by the existence of a single tree with sweet-smelling blossoms in it, so a family becomes famous by the birth of a virtuous son. (CNS: 3.14). (Similarly) as a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family. (CNS: 3.15).
• As night looks delightful when the moon shines, so is a family gladdened by even one learned and virtuous son. (CNS: 3.16). What is the use of having many sons if they cause grief and vexation? It is better to have only one son from whom the whole family can derive support and peacefulness. (CNS: 3.17). A single son endowed with good qualities is far better than a hundred devoid of them. For the moon, though one, dispels the darkness, which the stars, though numerous, cannot. (CNS: 4.6).
• Fondle a son until he is five years of age, and use the stick for another ten years, but when he has attained his sixteenth year treat him as a friend. (CNS: 3.18).
• What good is a cow that neither gives milk nor conceives? Similarly, what is the value of birth of a son if he becomes neither learned nor a pure devotee of the Lord? (CNS: 4.9).

Probably, we should not have any reservations for treating our kids like a darling for the first five years, discipline them up to their age fifteen, and treat them like a friend after sixteen. No doubt, if you have disciplined them very well and discharged your initial ‘bringing up’ responsibility effectively, your grown up children are your best friends.