Friday 29 July 2022

Hindu ideals of marriage in Chaucer

It may appear paradoxical that Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", renowned for the bawdy Miller's & Reeve's Tales, should also contain a tale reflecting the highest ideal of marriage recommended in Hinduism.

This is the tale of Zenobia, the great Palmyra Queen, which is one of the many tales included in "The Monk's Tale." She was a great warrior, polyglot & a well-read lady.

When she married King Odenatus, she stipulated "that he would with her lie but once, to have a child." If she "was not with child at the first act, she let him gratify his passion again. If she were with child at the first cast, only after forty days had passed,  she would grant him once to do the same. He got no more of her, for she said 'otherwise were it lechery & shame for wives, if men should play with them in bed."

So, she had two sons, whom she reared to be ideal kings. In this she resembled the Hindu Queen Madalasa (story found in Markandeya Purana), whose lullaby for her children is immortal.

Presumably in Satya Yuga, the precursor of Treta Yuga, in which Vishnu incarnated as Sri Rama to destroy the demon king Ravana, the sages were living such a life.

In more modern times, Sri Ramakrishna, also advised his devotee couples to live like siblings after a couple of children. Mahatma Gandhi also subscribed to this ideal. (even though he had four sons.) More recently, the first spiritual leader in the history of the world to have a truly global following in his own lifetime, cutting across religious barriers, remarked that "Animals have a season & Man has been given reason, but behaves as if he has neither season nor reason."

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