The Ideal of Woman As Mother

The idea women, in India, is the mother, the mother first and the mother last. The word woman calls up to the mind of the Hindu, Motherhood; and God is called Mother.

CW: Vol.8: Lectures and discourses: Women of India (p.57)

The idea of womanhood in India is motherhood – that marvelous, unselfish, all-suffering, ever forgiving mother. The wife walks behind – the shadow. She must imitate the life of the mother; that is her duty. But the mother is the idea of love, she rules the family, she possesses the family. It is the father in India who thrashes the child and spanks when there is something done by child, and always the mother puts herself between the father and child.

Ibid. (p58)

To the ordinary man in India, the whole force of womanhood is concentrated in motherhood.

Ibid. (p57)

It is unfair to judge women in the East by the Western standard. In the West, women is the wife ; in the East she is the mother. The Hindus worship the idea of mother, and even the monks are required to touch the earth with their foreheads before their mothers. Chastity is much esteemed.  

CW: Vol 3: Reports in America Newspaper: The Women of India (p.505)

In India the mother is the center of the family and our highest ideal. She is to us the representative of God, as god is the mother of the Universe. It was a female sage who first found the unity of God, and laid down this doctrine in one of the first hymns of the Vedas. (216)

CW: Vol.2: Reports in America Newspaper: Ideals of womanhood (p: 506)

The mother is the God in our family. The idea is that the only real love that we see in the world, the most unselfish love, is in the mother – always suffering, always loving. And what love can represent the love which we see in the mother? Thus the mother is the incarnation of God on earth to the Hindu.

CW: Vol.9: Lectures and Discourse: The women of India (p.202)

From motherhood comes tremendous responsibility.

CW: Vol.8: Lectures and Discourses: Women of India (p.60)

The Mother has to eat last.

CW: Vol.9: Lectures and Discourses: The Women of India (p.203)

The First part of the food – when it is ready – belongs to the guests and the poor, the second to the lower animals, the third to the children, the fourth to the husband, and last comes to the mother. How many times I have seen my mother going take her first meal when it was two o’clock. We took ours at ten and she at two because she had so many things to attend to.[for Example] some knocks at the door and says, “Guest”, and there is no food except what was for my mother. She would give that to him willingly and then wait for her own. That was her life and she liked it.

Ibid. (p.204)

As Children every day, when we are boys, we have to go early in the morning with a little cup of water and place it before the mother, and mother dips her toe into and we drink it.

CW: Vol.8: Lectures and Discourses: Women of India (p.57)

I have been told that either too much worship of the mother makes the mother selfish or too much love of the children for the mother makes them selfish. But I do not believe that. The love which my mother gave to me has made me what I am, and I owe a debt to her that I can never repay.

CW: Vol.9 Lectures and Discourses: Women of India (p.202 - 203)

In the West, the woman is wife. The idea of womanhood is concentrated there — as the wife. To the ordinary man in India, the whole force of womanhood is concentrated in motherhood. In the Western home, the wife rules. In an Indian home, the mother rules. If a mother comes into a Western home, she has to be subordinate to the wife; to the wife belongs the home. A mother always lives in our homes: the wife must be subordinate to her. See all the difference of ideas.

CW: Vol.8 Lectures and Discourses: Women of India (p.57)

Now, I only suggest comparisons; I would state facts so that we may compare the two sides. Make this comparison. If you ask, "What is an Indian woman as wife?", the Indian asks, "Where is the American woman as mother? What is she, the all-glorious, who gave me this body? What is she who kept me in her body for nine months? Where is she who would give me twenty times her life, if I had need? Where is she whose love never dies, however wicked, however vile I am? Where is she, in comparison with her, who goes to the divorce court the moment I treat her a little badly? O American woman! Where is she?" I will not find her in your country. I have not found the son who thinks mother is first. When we die, even then, we do not want our wives and our children to take her place. Our mother! — we want to die with our head on her lap once more, if we die before her. Where is she?

Ibid.: (p.57-58)

Is woman a name to be coupled with the physical body only? Ay! the Hindu mind fears all those ideals which say that the flesh must cling unto the flesh. No, no! Woman! thou shalt not be coupled with anything connected with the flesh. The name has been called holy once and for ever, for what name is there which no lust can ever approach, no carnality ever come near, than the one word mother?

Ibid

So shall we bring to the need of India great fearless women — women worthy to continue the traditions of Sanghamittâ, Lilâ, Ahalyâ Bâi, and Mirâ Bâi — women fit to be mothers of heroes, because they are pure and selfless, strong with the strength that comes of touching the feet of God."

CW: Vol. 5 Interviews: On Indian Women (p.231)