PART II. WEALTH - The Essentials of a State
Chapter. 91. Being led by Women
Kural - 901
Who give their soul to love of wife acquire not nobler gain;
Who give their soul to strenuous deeds such meaner joys disdain.
Those who lust after their wives will not attain the excellence of virtue; and it is just this that is not desired by those who are bent on acquiring wealth.
Kural - 902
Who gives himself to love of wife, careless of noble name
His wealth will clothe him with o'erwhelming shame.
The wealth of him who, regardless (of his manliness), devotes himself to his wife's feminine nature will cause great shame (to ali men) and to himself;
Kural - 903
Who to his wife submits, his strange, unmanly mood
Will daily bring him shame among the good.
The frailty that stoops to a wife will always make (her husband) feel ashamed among the good.
Kural - 904
No glory crowns e'en manly actions wrought
By him who dreads his wife, nor gives the other world a thought.
The undertaking of one, who fears his wife and is therefore destitute of (bliss), will never be applauded.
Kural - 905
Who quakes before his wife will ever tremble too,
Good deeds to men of good deserts to do.
He that fears his wife will always be afraid of doing good deeds (even) to the good.
Kural - 906
Though, like the demi-gods, in bliss they dwell secure from harm,
Those have no dignity who fear the housewife's slender arm.
They that fear the bamboo-like shoulders of their wives will be destitute of manliness though they may flourish like the Gods.
Kural - 907
The dignity of modest womanhood excels
His manliness, obedient to a woman's law who dwells.
Even shame faced womanhood is more to be esteemed than the shameless manhood that performs the behests of a wife.
Kural - 908
Who to the will of her with beauteous brow their lives conform,
Aid not their friends in need, nor acts of charity perform.
Those who yield to the wishes of their wives will neither relieve the wants of (their) friends nor perform virtuous deeds.
Kural - 909
No virtuous deed, no seemly wealth, no pleasure, rests
With them who live obedient to their wives' behests.
From those who obey the commands of their wives are to be expected neither deeds of virtue, nor those of wealth nor (even) those of pleasure.
Kural - 910
Where pleasures of the mind, that dwell in realms of thought, abound,
Folly, that springs from overweening woman's love, is never found.
The foolishness that results from devotion to a wife will never be found in those who possess a reflecting mind and a prosperity (flowing) therefrom.