It can’t have been fun for the Buddha’s wife,
Left on her own for the rest of her life
When her good lord fled
The royal bed
To seek for his own perfection.
It’s said in praise of Mahatma Gandhi –
A sort of saint, though his legs were bandy,
He was skinny and quaint – but still, a saint –
That for years he had nothing to do with his wife:
What about her life?
Christian women wear hats in church,
For fear lest their worshipping husbands lurch
And stagger and stare
At the sight of their hair,
Shining and heavy and long and free;
‘Christian women shall not tempt me,’
Said stern St. Paul, who refused to fall
Twice over, and made all women cover
Their burning and moving hair.
‘Come; said the milkmaids,’ come, come, come;
To their lord, Lord Krishna; who will not come.
The milk maids dance and cry to the dawn,
White milk, white flowers on an emerald lawn,
The milkmaids call and the tired cows yawn
And nobody comes.
According to men, God has chosen men
To be his voice, his hand, his pen,
To utter his laws, to touch his grace,
To write his books, to read his face,
To be his channel to everyone human
Except a woman.
– Ruth Silcock Pearson
The Buddha’s wife is a feminist poem composed by an English female poet Ruth Silcock Pearson. She highlights the plight and silent suffering of women down the history evident in almost every world religion. Even the super souls revered as God have mistreated their own wives or female companions. Examples are given of Lord Buddha’s wife, Mahatma Gandhi’s wife, Saint Paul’s Christian women, and Lord Krishna’s milkmaids respectively – these women suffered just because they were women.
Siddhartha Gautam left his palace and family in order to attain enlightenment. He left the palace the night his wife Yashodhara gave birth to Rahul, his son. Because he shook off his family responsibilities he was able to fully meditate upon his philosophical questions and attain enlightenment finally. But if we see it from Yashodhara’s side, she undoubtedly suffered the most by Siddhartha’s great renunciation. “She was left on her own for the rest of her life.” In her ripe youth, she got deprived of her husband’s love and support and had to live in the men’s world as a deserted wife and look after the baby alone as a single-parent.
Mahatma Gandhi, a saintly person overlooked his wife Kasturba’s desire, health and well-being for his uncompromised principles. He adopted celibacy, which deprived his wife of the fulfillment of her sexual desire for the rest of her life. When she was seriously ill, the British doctor had recommended certain medicines, but he refused the foreign medicines in the name of the boycott movement that he was leading against British Rule and instead tried the native ayurvedic treatments. And he also refused milk and meat to his wife for he was a pure vegetarian. Hence, Kasturba’s health deteriorated and she eventually died.
Saint Paul ordered the Christian women to cover their head in the church so that their worshipping husbands would not be tempted and distracted by their long shinning hair. Because of the men’s weakness and susceptibility to temptation, women had to lose their freedom and hide themselves.
Lord Krishna is said to have 16,000 milkmaids as his lovers. He tortured them by giving them false hope and false promise of love. He made them wait painfully and everlastingly for his love.
In concluding stanza, Pearson reminds us that history is written by men, laws and religious books are written by men, and they have always made themselves superior to women. “According to men, God has chosen men to be his voice, his hand, his pen . . . except a woman.” Men are closer to God; He speaks only to men and does his work only through men, not women, says the patriarchal ideology. Pearson writes these things with a satiric note. In fact, the tone of her entire poem is satiric. By exposing what men think, say and do, she is indirectly making a harsh criticism of the patriarchal ideology and practice.
Hence, to sum up, there are great men who are known to be the messiahs of humanity. But they themselves couldn’t treat their wife/lover justly. They thought and worked for the whole world, but neglected their own wife at home. Even the God is biased; he chose only the men to be his instruments and mediums. But the truth is male supremacy is just the invention of men and is imposed by the practice of men, including the so-called great men like Buddha, Gandhi, Paul, and Krishna. The poet exposes these great men and thus criticizes patriarchy for its ill-treatment of women.
GLOSSARY
bandy (adj): have legs that curve outward at the knees
emerald (n): bright and green colour
lest (conj): in order to prevent any possibility that something will happen
lurch (n): a sudden change
quaint (adj): attractive because of being unusual
stagger (v): to cause someone to feel shocked or very unusual happening
tempt (v): induce into action by using one’s charm
Ramrowriter 