Man and Woman
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Nolini Kanta Gupta
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India wanted to build and control the relation between man and woman according to a special ideal, in a special way. She wanted to keep woman thoroughly dependent on man. Woman was not permitted a personal existence and fulfillment separate from man. Woman had to accept the life and dharma of man and consecrate herself for its completeness. Man decided the aim and the way to achieve it—woman came as a helpful force on the way. The more a woman thus lost her selfhood and characteristics in man, sacrificed herself to allow man to grow and advance, the more she was an ideal of womanhood.
Not only in India, previously everywhere the life of woman used to be moulded in this way. In Europe also this was the rule, not to speak of ancient Greece and Rome where this ideal was forced to prevail up to the medieval age and even afterwards. Of course in India this ideal was anointed with the status of a fullfledged ideal, was made a thing of sadhana after being tied up with religion and morality. In Europe, it was at most a social arrangement or notion; but India laid this social arrangement on a stronger basis by uniting it with sadhana and higher movements of life. The mission of woman was to dissolve herself in man, man’s duty also was to lift woman within himself.
There was a reason behind such an arrangement or ideal. This does not simply prove man’s greed for domination or woman’s helplessness in submission. This relation has developed on the basis of a specific truth in the respective natures of man and woman. There is no conspiracy on the part of man in it, nor woman’s acceptance of this relation under sheer compulsion. What is that truth in man, what is it in woman, that has brought about this relation of the leader and the led or the master and the slave between man and woman?
Man’s natural base is in the world of mind and that of woman is in the world of life. In terms of the Upanishads, man’s life-centre is in the mind-cells, in the mental being, and that of woman’s in the life-cells, in the vital being. That is why man is by nature a symbol of knowledge and woman is the embodiment of force. The dharma of life-force is firstly to tie a creature downwards and homewards as strongly as possible with the earth. For this very reason woman has become the centre for building society, her natural dharma is at home, to create a home—gr+hin'īrgr+hamuccyate (the wife is so to say the house). There is another aspect of life-force which does not want or hasn’t got the capacity to build as much as it wants or the capacity to destroy. There is in life-force an unbridled movement, a restless passion, an unsatiated hunger. In Nature we see on one side the beautiful, calm and beneficial form—moonlight, spring-night, sun, rain, flowers, fruits, beauty, taste, smell; on the other side it has a formidably devastating form—moonless night, hailstorm, cyclone, volcanic eruption, epidemic. With a combination of virtues dire and sweet, woman also, like Nature, is adhr+s+yaścādhigamyaśca—unconquerable and covetable at the same time.
There is a blind passion in woman’s force, a downward pull, a sort of uncertainty. So it has been attempted to keep it subjugated to man’s upward movement of knowledge. The pressure and influence of the mental being was needed to keep the vital force tied, to direct it through a specific channel and to lift it towards a higher ideal in a cohesive order. Otherwise society does not grow, cannot survive; the master and slave attitude of man and woman was needed for the order and stability of society. The natural dharma of the mental being is the sadhana of knowledge, fixation of the ideal, determination of the true form of life’s mission. So we see, it is man who has fixed a particular ideal and initiation—woman has added her life-force to it for its completeness and fulfillment. This is the reason why ancient society did not want to or was not in a position to give independence to woman. A wall was built all around under pressure of collective necessity so that the life-force remained restrained and did not become disorderly and overwhelming, and society showed no sign of the centrifugal movement of disintegration. This excuse, accompanied with much half-knowledge and ignorance, managed to put it under such shackles. Independence of woman means to open the path of life-force without restraints—that may infuse force into society but there is no certainty about the course this force will follow. It may do good, it may cause harm also; but society cannot function depending on an uncertain thing like this. That is why it wanted to give a sure and well-defined form to this force even if by crippling it. Helped by the vision of knowledge of the mental being of man, it has striven to direct and control the blind life-force of woman.
Of course it cannot be said that every man is a receptacle of knowledge, and every woman is merely the image of life-force. Ample proofs to the contrary are available in society. But the general dharma, the principles at work underlying the life-stream beyond what is personally true and false is what we are talking about. Society has to see the way of working of the general force, so its arrangement, even when it seemed to be improper in some particular cases, was accepted for the sake of an overall social order.
The arrangement to keep woman fettered from all sides as far as possible and entirely subservient to man may be very effective for social stability and order but it cannot be denied that it is a hindrance to the development of society and nation.
Because in this arrangement woman becomes only an echo of man—and an echo, however strong and beautiful it may be, is not a living thing. Since separate individuality is not awakened, in such a society there cannot be from woman’s side any new creation of her own. The gradual development of society depends on a living union of both man and woman through a greater and more intimate interchange not only of hearts but also of minds. When new ideals, realisations and efforts blossom in two hearts and continue to move towards the same goal, that gives society the elixir of a new life. But where there is no scope for interchange in this higher level from both sides, gradually there appears inertia, relaxation, customary prejudices and immobility. The ideal of “Sati” was a living ideal when society was first knit together, but at present has it not turned merely into a lifeless blind habit?
Not that woman as the echo of man is in no way helpful to him but that helpfulness mostly means not to oppose. And for this very reason woman becomes a burden for man if not directly a hindrance; when she cannot move on her own, she has to be carried, dragged so to say, more or less laboriously. And as a result man also cannot stand upright and move with vigour in his own field, he has to come down. Although woman is subservient to man in ordinary life, from the inner side it is man who really gets swallowed by the vital-urge of woman. But when woman, independent and fully blossomed, stands by the side of man with her own force and capacity, then the strength of man becomes doubled and redoubled. When two full-grown independent beings unite, they not only help each other but nourish each other at each step and swiftly take each other towards the realisation and fulfillment of life.
Society did not encourage the union of two full-frown souls, because that was too risky. When they unite in concord and harmony it is ideal, but in many cases the chances of conflict are more. Society is made up of the common mass; society did not expect the highest form of union from them, hence did not want to take the risk involved in that course even for the sake of a higher realisation. When woman has to be moulded a dependent on man, then it is better to get it done as flawlessly as possible—that is why, in India, society prescribed child-marriage.
But it is also a truth that woman has a separate individual entity which too demands its own manifestation and, with its support, a greater union with the individual entity of man. This truth at times shows itself piercing through the stringent customary arrangements of society. The ancient European society—Greek and Roman—kept woman completely under man’s grip; the wife in that society was simply a machine for house-keeping and reproduction, a bond-slave of the family. That is why in that society man used to seek an equal partner outside marital relation from the courtesans in particular who exhibited a special personality and mental power by virtue of their education and their culture of the fine arts. However, probably because Europe at one time kept the women of her society so much neglected and unrefined, the women there gradually woke up as a consequent reaction, got inspired to be established on the feeling of selfhood and achieved a little bit of success. As a result lack of order and discipline has become amply visible in the society of Europe, but along with it don’t we see the increase in vitality of society and the beginning of a new relation between man and woman?
Such a scope did not occur in the social system of India for she never slighted her women-folk so categorically. No doubt she kept woman inferior but at the same time tried to link her with the superior being of man. Woman was given the status of an equal partner of man even while kept subservient to him. Even the practice of dharma and its fulfillment for woman was prescribed to conform with her slavery. Woman did not feel herself disgraced by it, nor did she feel the need of any other form of sadhana. That is why the women of India are so helpless. When the illusion of a dharma, of an ideal, engulfs the soul, then it is not at all easy to be freed from it—there is no bondage as firm as that of dharma.
We have kept woman under restraints because she is the embodiment of life-force. But as a result she has become confined within the field of life-force; she never did get a chance to wake up in the field of mind above life. And for the same reason the field of life-force also has become narrow for her, it has become gradually crowded with all sorts of rubbish. The nature and reality, the characteristic feature of woman may lie in the play of this life-force; but one must not forget that woman too is human having a mental being within and the development and fulfillment of this mental being is necessary for her. There is a vital field in man as well; and woman has been able to establish her right only over this vital field of man, and a sort of separation between his mind and life has crept in; even when he is liberal and reflective in the field of mind, he seems to be more earth-bound, more attached to the body in the vital field. The very fear has shown its face through those measures which society once prescribed as its remedy.
Even as man has got a personality, a characteristic of his own by virtue of his mental being, woman too must achieve her mental being, her own personality taking the stand on her life-force. A new mode of union between man and woman in society has to be found within this personality of the two. But first is needed the awakening of personality in woman also, like that of man. Before she forms any relation with man, the matrimony of her life-force with her own mental being is really the spiritual matrimony of woman, her first and real initiation.
(Nolini Kanta Gupta was a revolutionary, linguist, scholar, critic, poet, philosopher and a man of deep spiritual realisation. Author of nearly 60 books he was a Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram.)