Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/45

 generations to come. The profound responsibilities of parenthood, the devout self-surrenders of wedlock,the simple trusts of childhood, demand that the inviolable sanctities of marriage shall be kept scrupulously pure. "If man is the head of woman, woman is the heart of man"; and out of the heart are the issues of life. That character is the back-bone of a nation is almost a truism; but character has been compared to a bucket, and impurity to a leak at its bottom. "My strength," says Sir Galahad, "is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure." It argues a noble soul that cannot wrong a woman. A wag chafed Dryden at the utter spiritlessness of one of his heroes who could be alone with a beautiful woman and snatch no pleasure. "Yes," was the prompt and just reply, "you would have done other- wise, but you are no hero!" Gladstone has observed that "conjugal relation includes in itself all other loves;" and the Mahabharata defines the wife as "the friend in solitude, the father in duty, the mother