The Dharma of Man and Woman
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Nolini Kanta Gupta
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Woman is a human being, and so is man—we must first admit this fundamental oneness; both must be given equal advantage, opportunity and freedom to understand and realise this truth. But then we must visualize the distinction between the two. Man and woman even though part of the same humanity, are two distinct instruments and express the human-dharma in two different ways. The aims and objects of education and constant endeavour of man as well as of woman are to awaken and fulfil “human-hood”, but this does not mean that the ways and means of both are wholly identical. The diversity of the world is as true as its unity; rather from a certain point of view we may say that this very diversity has made of this world a world; the mystery and fulfillment of creation lie in this peculiar distinction. Many a time we mix up everything, not for the sake of realizing oneness and unity, but for the convenience of achieving some end as also due to lethargy; —this does not either keep the solemnity of truth intact, or fulfil the secret purpose of creation. That is why the question arises about the distinctiveness of man and woman, the type or limb represented by man, and the type or limb represented by woman.
Humans have two portions—one is knowledge and the other is force; human beings want to know and to work. There is yet another portion of the human being—love—which blends itself with one of those two, with the help and support of that it continues its play; or love, that is to say Ananda, as if holds knowledge and force from behind—ānandāt hi jāyante imāni (from Ananda all these are born), knowledge finds expression through mind and intelligence, its field or center is the brain; force finds expression through life, its field—in the language of yoga—is manipura (navel center). We mean to say that man is knowledge and woman is force.
The natural and normal base or pivot of man is in the brain while that of woman is in the heart. As a first result of this basal or pivotal distinction we see that man is as if drifted a little away from the earth, from the external manifestation, and woman has as it were a closer and intimate natal relation with them. The witness-mood of Purusha as envisaged in Sankhya finds natural expression in man whereas woman is as if Parakriti herself. Woman is filled with the dharma of life-force; that is why she has an effortless achievement with regard to wit and humour, vivacity and capacity to enjoy—the grace and sweetness of woman, her power of enchantment are the rhythm-waves of this life-force, the electrifying attraction of the same. Since man is no more close to this life-force, he needs to put in a lot of effort, even hard discipline, to recover the full power and richness of this life-force.
Man hasn’t got that much of a hold over things of the world and life as woman has. To understand a thing may be the work of the brain and intellect, but to move the thing along is the work of force. Woman has an extraordinary competence and artistic skill in arranging and running things. She has a sort of secret harmony with things, as it were; they get beautifully arranged in her hands. Man can probably conceive a good plan after much observation and reflection, but he is not as skilful as woman in implementing it. If man wants to do the same he needs to apply force and show the muscle-power of his gross physical. Man’s mind being more weighty, he seems to need more force to stand on his legs. Brain-work and reasoning seem more befitting to man; so in reaction, in compensation or as a necessity he has been given physical strength—strong bones, solid flesh and hard muscles. When he returns to the world of activity from the world of mind and intellect, he depends mostly on these instruments. But woman does not need them as much. She does not move things with the force of the physical body—there is a sort of artificiality, a sort of contradiction and division between the doer and the thing done in the application of the bodily force. The brain of man has weakened his life-force and has severed and separated him from matter; the life-force of woman, on the other hand, has kept her linked with matter; so what she moves with natural ability and skill, man does that with brute force. While Napoleon had to practise exercises and acrobatics at school, in order to be able to meet the challenges of the material world, Jeanne d’Arc had to do nothing of that sort. The Amazons of ancient times had become so formidable precisely because they added bodily force also to the woman’s extraordinary life-force.
Even though man is physically stronger than woman, yet woman is force—not from the spiritual, not even from the emotional or allegorical or from the point of view of poetic imagination, but from the point of view of reality. Man has a powerful frame, the external limbs; but woman has the inner stream of power—life-force; and just because she has this life-force, she need not depend on the external frame. It is this life-force or vitality within that has made even her weak and delicate limbs naturally capable. That is why at times we wonder at the ease and capacity with which women, confined within the four walls, can do those works of hard labour, if need be, which men are capable of only after regular practice and which they consider their monopoly.
There is more restlessness in the force of man, that is to say, in the expression of that force or this action; comparatively woman is calm and steadfast. Because the stock of his life-force is less that is why it tends to inflate itself and spill over—otherwise it cannot handle the pressure of Nature. Since in woman that stock is greater, she can handle Nature with stillness, with restraint, with a force that is silent and compact. Woman does not suffer as much from disorder, waste or reverse in life-force and body-cells as does man. That is why man is said to be active and woman passive. And it is for this that man does not mirror the youthfulness of the world as woman does. And again for this very reason men are not naturally static and prejudiced as women are. Man’s restless vital drives him constantly towards the ever-new everywhere and it is his ever-new mental ideas and thoughts that inspire him towards this. The brimming life-force in a woman wants to flow steadily along its proper channel. That is why, in matters of either society or religion, of ideals or morality, the force of the ancients sits so well in woman; that solidity and force of concretisation does not come to man as easily. It is men who have mostly brought about the new—women have merely consolidated it.
The possibility of flooding exists in a calm river too, a quiet heart can swell up as well. Especially if that river or that heart is full to the brim, that overflow becomes significant. Consequently, however passive woman may be in her body, in her physical expression, however insignificant may be the billowing of waves in her sea of life, there lurks within just behind her body, inside that very life, a tremendous pull, a constant restlessness compared to which the external restlessness of man is of no account. This is like the astonishment of people at Meghna being dreaded so much as they stand before the almost rippleless surface of the river; but the local boatmen know what a terrible flow whirls below the surface calm and smoothness and which unfurls with explosive violence at the slightest gust of wind or an overcast sky. Woman too is quite similar. The outer restlessness of man is not as visible in woman, but there is an impetus, a momentum whose effective action is much greater; and it does not always remain behind the surface. When it is stirred, the waters break both banks causing devastation on their way—then woman becomes a far greater revolutionary than man who says that woman is oversensitive. Man cannot even imagine the delight that woman has in frightful acts—that which makes a man shudder, a woman can plan without wavering in the mind and execute without the slightest fear in the heart. Lady Macbeth is not simply a figment of poetic imagination. In ancient Rome it used to be the women spectators who with utmost delight cheered the gladiators; even in Spain till the other day women used to swarm into the stadium to relish cruel bullfights. From the brighter side in view, we see that the first disciple of Christ, and that of Mohammed also, was a woman. Again, during the bad days, quite a few male disciples of Christ had thought of leaving him, but that thought never arose in the mind of any female disciple. Because Sri Radhika was a woman, she could forego all her possessions and take upon herself the blot with a smile—that woman alone can afford to be immodest who is modesty incarnate.
Woman’s task, her natural dharma, is ‘to be’. Woman wants to unite and mix herself with whatever thing she comes in contact with; she wants to lose her identity with unreserved self-giving, or wants to swallow the thing to make it a part and parcel of her own. In contrast man cannot unite and mix with a thing, ‘be’ the thing itself. However dear and intimate the thing may be, man seems to keep a separative distance from it; isolating himself and keeping the thing at a distance he establishes his relation with it. Man does not seem to want that much to become the thing as he wants to see or know it. So we see that the more there is a decrease in the turbulence of life in man, the more there is an increase of indifference, a detachment within him with a wider and unwavering vision. From this aspect, it is rather man who is passive, woman is active; when woman gets a thing she clasps it with her arms while man holds it loose. Whatever thing woman catches, she fixes her gaze on that exclusively and there she is blind in a way; but when man catches one thing, his gaze wants to embrace other things along with it as well, he seeks also to find a relation between the thing held and those beyond his grasp. Sincerity is the natural dharma and ideal of woman.
Because woman’s base is the heart, detachment is somewhat different for her; this detachment is easier for man because his base is the brain. In creative artistic work such a detachment is essential; in fact this inner detachment is at the very root of artistic creation. If one mingles and allows to let oneself drift in one’s idea and passion, then it is not possible to recreate that idea and passion. Poets are said to be insincere—however this has a deeper meaning. Merely steeping oneself in an inspiration does not make you a poet—you must be able to step back and relive that inspiration; because of this stepping back to review, the natural initial form of the inspiration, pure and entire, does not remain unaffected. There occurs then a sense of līlā or simulation—what you could call insincerity if you like. But without this sort of insincerity no artistic creation is possible.
Poets are not that much wanting in knowledge as they are in spirit; in poetesses, on the other hand, there is no dearth of vigorous spirit, any dearth if at all is in the field of knowledge only. This is applicable not only to poetic creation but also to the whole life of man and woman. “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” is the utterance of man; but if the spirit of woman is willing then her flesh never remains weak.
It is the self-divisive capacity of man’s soul, of his consciousness or knowledge, which again shows itself in his reasoning intellect. There is a difference between man’s path of knowledge and that of woman’s. Man’s knowledge is based on the brain—thoughts are the ingredients of that knowledge with reasoning and argument as the means. He acquires knowledge only by separating, handling, observing, comparing and classifying things. But woman acquires knowledge of things through heart-to-heart union, by becoming one with things, by a sort of instinct natural to her. Just as the gross senses acquire knowledge of things through direct-touch, similarly woman acquires knowledge of things through a direct inner touch. Man moves slowly, keeping harmony with all around, from one conclusion to another to arrive at the truth; even if he does not arrive, at least he tries to establish the truth in this way. For woman the proof of truth lies in intense feeling, in a movement of the heart. Bergson defined intuition as a kind of sympathy. Woman’s path of knowledge is through this sympathy or this instinctive intuition—a natural intermingling of two streams of the heart.
That is why we see that woman doesn’t exert her mind for a subject or a thing just for the sake of knowledge. Anything that does not touch her heart, with which she has no particular relation or interest, woman doesn’t even care to look at that; she ignores it altogether. But that is not the case with man; his reasoning intellect or inquisitiveness is satiated even by handling things which have no relation with his heart. Man has a wideness of intellect with which he wants to throw light on everything in the world and the universe; nothing is alien to him—nihil alienum. But a thing is altogether alien to woman if it is outside the ambit of her heart. On the other hand, once a thing falls within this heart’s ambit, the whole of her being becomes keenly awake about it—all her curiosity and inquisitiveness rise up, intelligence works in a sharp cohesive movement—she can gather so much knowledge thanks to her sharp vision—that perplexes even the large-sightedness of man. Man’s expression is vocal while woman’s is from the heart. Vocal expression spreads over many subjects; expression from the heart moves to the depths, within a small space but intertwining with the inner self.
Woman’s relation is through the heart and therefore it is material and personal. Woman’s thoughts and reflections move materially with forms and images. Woman cannot remain preoccupied only with abstract principles as does man; she wants something concrete. Even to grasp a theory she gives it a particular form; until a theory becomes living and visible through material example, it seems to be vague and puzzling for her. Woman understands a truth, a fact comprehensively by placing it in things, in action, in life; only that philosophical quest which gets expressed in such a living manner finds a place in her brain. For man, very often, a thing, a happening, a particular topic is only an excuse, a sort of secondary support; given an opportunity, he would leave all these and go beyond, towards a general theory. Man might have framed the Shastras but woman’s focus is on their application.
Moreover, woman wants a personal rapport—she grasps and understands a thing only by identifying herself with it. For this reason, while on one side her knowledge and intellect become living and material, these also get stamped with her personality and her limits. It is difficult for a woman to assimilate another’s idea, thought or viewpoint; whatever she sees, she colours it wholly with the colour of her own eyes, she does not want to look through another’s eye. Woman is a lyric soul. Her genius finds much easy expression through lyrical poetry, but she is not that skilful to show varied viewpoints through various characters in a drama. Woman cannot negate or forget her own entity or ‘I’—at least in imagination—as easily as does man. The ego of man wants to make the whole world its own and wants to swallow it. Woman wants to place her ego against the world, wants to collect and snatch her own things from the world. Man establishes himself with the world as his centre, while woman establishes the world with her soul as its centre.
Or, woman is as if a centripetal force while man is centrifugal. That is why society and family got built and decorated with woman as its centre. It is the touch of woman that brought about the crystallisation of human collectivity. Community does not come into being with man alone—if at all it does, it is only with a great effort, by applying force, by holding together tightly with stringent laws and regulations. The urge of man is to renounce and go beyond, towards unlimited and therefore undisciplined individuality, towards nirvān&a. Community, society and family grow and blossom naturally, with ease, around woman. Woman seems to have a sort of heaviness, a gravitation that pulls you down to the earth, she focuses you on a clear conscious reality; while man seems to have a sort of lightness or levitation that wants to soar upward with the wind.
Woman’s motherhood—carrying the child in the womb—is her embodied nature, is a symbol of her entire womanhood. Man can give birth to ideas, thoughts and principles, but woman gives birth to living things. Man’s work may be mental creation, but woman’s is creation of a body. Man may awaken the human-soul, but woman brings it down and gives it a shape. Man is hiran&yagarbha (the Spirit in the Dream-state)—the self of creation, the various modes of creation and all the possibilities are at play within him; but woman is jāgrat (the waking state), virāt (the universal soul), Nature-mother—she brings forth and gives a real and concrete form to what was only a possibility within.
Man is thus inclined towards contemplation while woman towards manifestation. Woman wants riches, occult powers; woman is affluence. Woman’s heart is attracted towards things that blossom with vigour, health and beauty; she delights in manifesting vigour, health and beauty. Poverty is a thing which does not conform with woman. One may somehow tolerate a man in distress but a woman in distress is a most unbecoming sight. Man’s natural introvertedness nicely conforms with all that is simple, ordinary and unpompous. But woman’s talent finds expression through pomp and splendour—in flash of colours, in music of rhythms, in cadence of sound, in show of ornaments. It is woman’s right, so to say, to make her affluence striking with showy ornamentation. That is possibly why Gouri got adorned with overlapping ornaments—sā man(d(anānman(d(anamanvabhunkta; but Mahadev did only touch and not accept the adornments served by the seven goddesses; his own natural dress was enough for him—sa eva veśah'.
Man’s diversity is in thoughts and realisations, while woman’s is in life and feelings. That in man “there is a method in his madness” is not very difficult to grasp. But woman-nature plays and colours itself with ever-new rhythms and melodies which cannot be demarcated along fixed lines. As if anguished, man considers woman to be “false as the sea”. In fact this falsity is the expression of a multitudinous diversity about which Shakespeare says:
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety.There is a kind of stamp in the masculine mode as if following the rules of logic. On one side it is clear, apparent and firm while on the other it is tangled, stubborn and inert. In the feminine mode there are playful movements and relaxed amorous gestures but, at the same time, there are aspects of obscurity, complexity and mystery. In this context we can compare the masculine genius of Wordsworth with the feminine genius of Rabindranath. While man seems to build and decorate things consciously with precise measurements and calculations, we find in woman the unconscious or half-conscious development and arrangement of living organic things doing the same. Man’s method is of reason and intellect, woman’s of heart and feeling.
This subtlety and sensibility of heart and feeling is a characteristic feature of the woman-nature. The heart-strings, the nerve-cords of woman, as if meticulously polished, sparkling and swift, do not rust easily; the movement of response continues effortlessly and playfully through them; they stir and thrill even with a slight shock from within or without. The nerve-cords of man seem to be gross, rigid and clogged and need greater shock or more sustained effort. Woman can easily establish contact with the subtle world. The influence of the subtle world finds hardly any resistance to play with her—woman is a better psychic medium than man.
But woman, being so easily responsive, becomes bounded by certain specific responses; her nerve-cords are set to the first touches and shocks received and follow some set reactions; she feels uncomfortable at any new touch and wants to reorient even the new into the old. Man’s nerve-cords, being not so easily influenced, can react in many different directions; they can grasp completely different and contrasting things in a coherent harmony. Woman’s being is thus intense and that of man wide. We have already said that variety was one of the characteristics of woman; but that variety is not so much a variety of subjects as of style, not so much a variety of lines as of colour. Man’s inquisitiveness moves towards as many subjects as possible; woman is inquisitive within a certain limit, about things that are in harmony with her heart. But man is not skilful enough to add colour to things, he sees and accepts things in a straight-cut simple way; woman, within her limited range, can add colour and emotion to things. Woman’s inquisitiveness is for the thing, with all its constituent finer details; that is why the thing in all its details seems to come alive leaving a bright imprint on woman’s heart and eyes. Man, even when observing the thing in all its details, wants to transcend it and try and seize the essence, the relationship that is most common.
Man and woman are the two sides of existence, of the world, of the human race. These two sides do not simply stand facing each other or touch each other like a sphere cut into two. The very idea that man and woman touch each other on one plane only along a thin line—the rest being different or opposite—has caused an acute separation between the two, and which is the origin of all the troubles of society. Man and woman are not two things added or joined together from two sides—they have united together in an inextricable blend. Both contain all things, only the manner of expressing these is different—they are different in the colouring—in one a certain colour is deep while in the other it is a bit paler, that is all. But then even this slight distinction deserves deep consideration. To understand and grasp the diversity of the world, one must search in light-and-shade. The variety of creation expresses itself thanks to this subtle occurrence of light-and-shade in the soul, not the way the eyes are shaped but on the manner of looking. The gross distinction visible at a glance is a rough account, an admixture of true and false. Real truth is subtle. So long as we do not build separate cultural institutions for man and woman according to this subtle truth, the relation of man and woman will remain a patchwork, society will also totter by taking its stand on a falsehood or half-truth.
We think, woman is the image of life and vitality, while man is that of mind and intellect. In woman everything is directed towards fullness and fulfillment of life, towards work, while everything in man culminates in knowledge. Man is austere power while woman is delightsome power; woman is earth, man is heaven. The evolutionary process in the world has ascended from matter to life, from life to mind; man has gone beyond the animal’s field of life and has taken his stand now in the field of mind. The characteristic feature of mind has specially found expression in the male (or masculine mood) of humankind—as if man has attained or is touching the uppermost limit of mind. Woman is needed so that he does not cut his connection with the lower fields on the temptation of his urge to reach this summit. Man goes on transforming the preceding levels below, but in that transformation blends the truth of the old with something real and living. Man moves with his head looking skyward, woman nudges him to the reality below. Many may consider this downward attraction as something negative, but the existing truth of this reality cannot be shrugged away. There is needed a constant connection between man and woman so that human beings may attain to perfection by embracing simultaneously father heaven and mother earth, so that they become—
“True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.”
(The above article is evidently born of his deep spiritual insight on the complex issue of man-woman relationship. It remains as relevant today as yesterday. However we must also take note that Nature is in a transition mode today. It seeks to create a new type of humanity that would be each complete in itself and yet carry the whole as complimentary aspects of its own total existence. Therefore we find the emergence of the masculine side in a woman and the feminine aspect from within a man. Consequently there is also a changing pattern of relationships which includes experimental living together of those with the same gender, a widening of the close knit circle of family, and the redefining of roles. Yet this is only a period of transition. Once Nature has experimented with the old and successfully created the new type, it will inevitably arrive at a new stability wherein these subtle and deep truths of human nature shall find their true and proper place in the new harmony of life and not as we see them today in their distorted, and apparently conflicting rather than complementary facets.)
(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.)