Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/1023

 VII,] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LIFERALURE. 977 endure the greatest sacrifices. Their immortal epics bear striking evidences of this ideal as governing society. But no ‘sacrifice within the precincts of one’s home is raised to so high a point of merit as that prompted by sacred nuptial devotion. There are a thousand fables, stories and poems illustrating these noble sacrifices of devoted wives for their husbands. The Hindu woman lives in the atmosphere of this ideal. From her ten- derest years she is trained up to it. The stories of Savitri, of Sita, of Damayanti, of Behula—these are what a Hindu girl is accustomed to hear every evening in Bengal and even when she is a mere child she willingly fasts on the day of Savitri Brata. The Hindu woman grew, as Spartan boys did in ancient Greece,—under great hardships imposed on them by society, but they were meant fora great purpose. Even now the stories and poems that she reads are full of high ideas illustrative of the noblest virtues attendant upon faithful wife- hood. The ideal embodied in them would fasci- nate and attract any tender soul ;' for the tales of supreme sacrifice undergone for love, never pass in vain with those young audiences who are most susceptible to nobility of spirit. The love of a Hindu wife is scarcely expressed in passionate utterances. It pervades her whole life. The sacrifices she runs, the spirit of resigna- tion and of entirely losing herself in the thought of doing good to her husband, raise her love be- yond all sorts of mundane considerations, not to speak of any for her own comforts. It is this spirit which made women court death willingly on the funeral pyre of the husband. They often died 123