The Kural · Chapter
XCI: Submission to Wife Government explained
This chapter warns against excessive submission to one's wife, arguing that such doting leads to loss of greatness, shame, and failure in righteousness, wealth, and love.
What happens
This chapter warns against excessive submission to one's wife, arguing that such doting leads to loss of greatness, shame, and failure in righteousness, wealth, and love. It contrasts the weakling who fears his wife with the ambitious man favored by fortune.
Themes in this chapter
Family Life and Duty
The chapter critiques a specific imbalance in family life where the husband submits excessively to the wife, undermining proper household order.
The Vanity of Worldly Life
The chapter implies that doting on a wife leads to loss of worldly respect and true happiness, highlighting the vanity of such attachment.
Characters to notice
- Fortune
Fortune is mentioned as favoring men who do not dote on their wives.
Key passages
“Behold the man who hath an abject infatuation for his wife: in the very midst of his prosperity he will be a byword among men, and he will have to hide his face in shame.”
A man who is foolishly obsessed with his wife will become a laughingstock even when he is successful, and he will be humiliated.
This verse emphasizes the social disgrace that comes from excessive wifely submission.
“Behold the men that submit to petticoat government: neither righteousness nor wealth nor even the joy of love will be found with them.”
Men who let their wives rule them lose all virtue, prosperity, and even the pleasure of love itself.
This verse summarizes the threefold loss—dharma, artha, and kama—that results from such submission.