The history of chaste women

Vaishampayana said : O best of the Bharata race, thereupon king Yudhishthira asked the most enlightened Markandeya a question that is too difficult to be understood.

O you that are possessed of great energy, I desire to listen to the best account of a woman's greatness, O Brahmanas, you relate to me in detail the principles of pure morality.

O Brahmanical sages, O foremost of men, the sun, the moon, the earth and the fire look like the deities in their embodied forms.

O holy one, O excellent one, O descendant of the Bhrigu race, the father, the mother and the preceptor-these and others, as ordained by the celestials, also appear as deities.

All venerable persons are to be respected, as also the women who are devoted to one husband. The service, that chaste women offer to their husbands, seems to me to be very difficult.

O lord, it behoves you to relate to us the excellency of chaste women, who, O blameless one, putting a check upon all their senses and even restraining their minds, always think their husbands as gods. O holy one, O lord, O Brahmana, the worship that sons offer to their fathers and mothers and also what wives render to their husbands, appears to me be fraught with difficulty. In fact, I do not find anything more difficult than the duties of chaste women (to their husbands).

O Brahmanas, what the wives of good behaviours perform carefully ſin respect to their husbands) and also what the sons do to their father and mother, are indeed, highly difficult.

To those women who are attached to one lord; and those who speak the truth; and those who conceive in their womb a child for full ten months;

And to those women also who in due time are subject to great troubles and suffer extraordinary pains, what is more wonderful than these?

O worshipful one, women give birth to their children with great pain to themselves; and, O foremost of the Brahmanas they bring them up with great affection.

That the persons, who are desirous of doing evils to others and who are always engaged in cruel deeds, discharge their duties, is, in my opinion, highly difficult.

O twice-born one, relate to me the detailed account of the virtue of the Kshatriya race. O Brahmana, the acquisition of virtue becomes very difficult for the lofty-minded ones, for they have to perform certain cruel deeds (in obedience to their racial duties).

O worshipful one, O you that do know answer to all questions, I desire to listen to the answers that you will relate; for, O foremost of the Bhrigu race, O you of excellent vows, I always worship you.

Markandeya said : O the best of the Bharata race, I will relate to you in detail the whole history of your question, although it is too difficult to state; you listen to me, as I tell you.

Some consider the mother to be superior and some again consider the father as such. The mother, however, performs the most difficult thing; for she propagates the species.

The fathers, too, by observing severe asceticism, by the adorations of the celestials and by chanting their praises, by undergoing the rigour of heat and cold, by repeating incantations and also by other expedients desire to possess children.

O hero, thus having obtained a child after having recourse to these painful expedients, a child which is difficult of attainment, they always think what the child would do in the future.

O descendant of the Bharata race, both the father and the mother aspire that the son is possessed of fame and celebration, wealth and subjects, as also virtue.

O best of kings, the son who satisfies these aspirations of the parents, is considered to be virtuous. The son, whose father and mother are always satisfied with him, establishes everlasting reputation and virtue both in this world and the next.

She needs no sacrifices, nor she is required to perform Shraddha or to observe abstinence. When the wife offers all her services to her husband. In fact, thereby he alone obtains heaven.

O king, O Yudhishthira, remembering this fact, listen to the virtue of chaste women with as much attention as possible.