WOMEN OF INDIA-9.

(Delivered at the Shakespeare Club House, in Pasadena, California, on January 18, 1900)

 For Recap -Read Part-1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

THE LECTURE :- Part-9.


There she is — the Hindu mother.

The son's wife comes in as her daughter; just as the mother's own daughter married and went out, so her son married and brought in another daughter, and she has to fall in line under the government of the queen of queens, of his mother.

Even I, who never married, belonging to an Order that never marries, would be disgusted if my wife, supposing I had married, dared to displease my mother.

I would be disgusted. Why? Do I not worship my mother? Why should not her daughter-in-law? Whom I worship, why not she?

Who is she, then, that would try to ride over my head and govern my mother?

She has to wait till her womanhood is fulfilled; and the one thing that fulfils womanhood, that is womanliness in woman, is motherhood.

Wait till she becomes a mother; then she will have the same right.


That, according to the Hindu mind, is the great mission of woman — to become a mother.

But oh, how different! Oh, how different! My father and mother fasted and prayed, for years and years, so that I would be born.

They pray for every child before it is born.

Says our great law-giver, Manu, giving the definition of an Aryan, "He is the Aryan, who is born through prayer".

Every child not born through prayer is illegitimate, according to the great law-giver.

The child must be prayed for.

Those children that come with curses, that slip into the world, just in a moment of inadvertence, because that could not be prevented — what can we expect of such progeny?

 Mothers of America, think of that!

Think in the heart of your hearts, are you ready to be women?

Not any question of race or country, or that false sentiment of national pride.

Who dares to be proud in this mortal life of ours, in this world of woes and miseries?

What are we before this infinite force of God?

But I ask you the question tonight: Do you all pray for the children to come?

Are you thankful to be mothers, or not?

Do you think that you are sanctified by motherhood, or not?

Ask that of your minds. If you do not, your marriage is a lie, your womanhood is false, your education is superstition, and your children, if they come without prayer, will prove a curse to humanity.

Swami Vivekananda
To be continued  ...