Seven Types Of Wives: What do we think of this?

DhammaDhatu

So the Enlightened One described the seven kinds of wives to her in verse:

Who, with mind corrupted, is unfeeling
Loves other men but her husband despises,
He who with wealth has gained her
She even seeks to kill — a Slayer is such a wife.

Whatever her husband gets for her by trade,
By skilled profession or a farmer's work,
She tries to filch a little just for herself.
Such a wife may well be called a Thief.

The slothful glutton, bent on idling,
A woman rude and fierce with coarse speech,
He who supports her, she dominates.
Such a wife a Tyrant must be called.

She who always for her husband cares
With sympathy, like a mother for her son,
Who carefully guards his stored-up wealth,
Such a wife may Motherly be called.

She who holds her husband in the same regard
As younger sister holds the elder born,
Who humbly serves her husband's every wish,
As Sisterly is such a wife known.

She whom her husband's sight will always please,
Like friends who see each other after long a time,
Who nobly bred and virtuous, devoted to her husband,
A Friend is she as well as wife.

From anger free, afraid of punishment,
Who bears with her husband with patient heart,
And without grudge obeys his every wish,
A Handmaid is she and a wife.

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Dazzle

Sounds OK if it works both ways and the husband has a similar attitude.


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SherabDorje

Sounds OK if it works both ways and the husband has a similar attitude.

What Dazzle said, and it sounds kind of archaic, meaning it's a teaching indicative of the times the Buddha lived in. The piece is just descriptive, meaning that there is no recommendation regarding violent behavior toward the negative aspects or anything like that. As Dazzle said, if it works both ways and the husband has a similar attitude, it seems to work. It just strikes me as descriptive and somewhat archaic, but apparently that's how things were 2500 years ago.

bodhipunk

I've known both guys and gals that fit some of those descriptions, even overlaping with a few of them. And Dazzle's right. A relationship wont work unless it works both ways. The Buddha even said in the Samajivina Sutta said that if a relationship is to be fruitful and lasting, both husband and wife should be "in tune (with each other)" in conviction, virtue, generosity, and discernment.

Cinorjer

Ah, the Sujata Sutra, called that because most of it is in the form of a lecture given by the Buddha to a woman named Sujata. That poor daughter-on-law was enshrined in Buddhist history as an example of a misbehaving wife. Probably makes the more liberated women in the group grit their teeth, but in Eastern cultures, the role you play in society and family harmony is extremely important in a way it's hard for us to understand. A woman first obeyed her father, then her husband, and was often treated like a slave and mistreated by her mother-in-law. Until she had her own sons, and own daughter-in-laws to order around. So, this isn't unenlightened for the time. Poor Sujata was just on the bottom of the pecking order in that society.

It's actually an important and popular sutra, because it goes into detail on how the lay devout Buddhist may officially take the Precents and Refuge. It's where we get both the 5 and 8 Precepts from, in fact.

You can tell this was meant to be recited and memorized by people who often could not read, and probably couldn't afford their own hugely expensive copy of the sutra even if they could, because it's full of lists. When you see a list in teh sutras, it's there to test your memory.

Your memorizing this teaching could be easily tested. What are the 6 directions one must pay respect? What are the 7 types of wife? What are the 4 types of households? What are the 5 Precepts? What are the 8 steps to be taken before receiving the Vows (It includes being tested on knowing this sutra, and also getting permission from your King, or I suppose the local representative of the King. It was a feudal system, of course. The King owned you and decided what you could do and who you worshipped. I think Buddhists have decided to skip that step now)

aMatt

It seems observant, and still somewhat true.

On the surface, its applying solid definitions to transient roles, but thay might have not been the point. Perhaps helping sujata and others examine the nature of intent and interconnection more closely.

AMH

One thing I try to recall that is hard for us to understand and comprehend (harder the younger you are) is that the wife did a whole lot of things that could not be done any other way. There was no convenience foods or laundromats or stores to buy clothing. So when a family was well fed and well clothed a wife could take huge pride in that, she had done it all. Things like tending a fire make no sense to us, well if you can't keep a fire going or restart one then no one eats. If you don't care for your garden or store food well then people starve.

So in the best relationships I can see a husband being as dependant on his wife as she was on him. And I read this just inserting partner/husband half the time and it didn't sound so bad.

DhammaDhatu

sorry...error post

Jeffrey

Which one is the perfect wife which makes us happy? Like genie of the lamp?