The law impresses on wives the greatest devotion and subjection to their husbands. Never, we are told, is the woman independent. In her childhood she depends on her father, then on her husband, and if he dies, on her sons. The sister is in the tutelage and power of the brother. So long as the husband lives, the wife is in a condition of subjection to him day and night; neither in his life nor after his death must she do anything displeasing to him, even though he is not irreproachable in his life, and gives himself to other loves; she must be good-tempered, careful and thrifty for house and home. She must honour her husband as a god; if she honours him on earth, she will herself be honoured in heaven; if she has kept her body, thoughts, and life pure, she receives one abode with him in heaven. The Epos presents beautiful and touching pictures of Indian wives, who follow their husbands into the wilderness, and when in the power of the enemy keep their faith to their husbands, and without doubt possess the qualities of devotion and self-sacrifice, which, inherent in the disposition of the Aryas, were so greatly developed in the Brahmanic system, and found in India their most beautiful realisation in the character of women, to which indeed they chiefly belong. Though in the law the husband is beyond question the master in the house,--in case of resistance on the part of the wife, she may be punished even with blows of the bamboo,--he is nevertheless bound on his part to reverence and honour his wife; he must make her presents that she may adorn herself; and he must not vex her, for where the wife is vexed, the fire on the hearth soon goes out (it was quenched at the death of the wife), and when the wife curses a house it will soon fall to ruin.[329]