Jennifer Fischer
HRS 220
Dubois
Word Count: 1526
“Sacrificed Wife, Sacrificer’s Wife” by Stephanie W. Jamison
- Introduction
- Selective Summary
- Srauta Ritual
- Varunapraghasa ritual
- Women’s roles in Vedic ritual
- Evaluation
- The importance of the woman’s role in ritual
- The wife’s role as a scapegoat
- Implications of the woman’s role
- Wider Relevance
In Jamison’s text, “Sacrificed Wife, Sacrificer’s Wife”, she outlines a traditional Vedic ritual, called the ‘Srauta’ ritual in which both the men of the society, and their wives, participate. It would seem natural in a patriarchal society that a woman would do any preparing of essential items or food for the rituals of the culture, but perhaps it is a bit surprising when the women of a patriarchal society are essential to the very framework of the religious rituals. Such is the case in the ‘Srauta’ ritual.
The ‘Srauta’ ritual’s participants must necessarily be married since there are both male and female roles to be played throughout different parts of the ritual. “Sacrificer’s Wife, (patni in Sanskrit) is a structural role in ritual with particular duties and activities that cannot be performed by anyone else” (Jamison 30). However, if the wife is menstruating, she may not attend as it may be an unwanted pollutant that would undermine the potency of the ritual. “Half of the ritual is destroyed if on the Vow-taking day his wife is ‘untouchable’” (Jamison 32). The ritual begins with the threshing and grinding of the grain. Yet more must be done in preparation, such as making the wife fit for ritual. Before the wife is fit for the ritual, she must be ‘yoked and unyoked’. The wife is girded and will sit with her knees raised or stands in her place near the ‘Garhapyata’ fire. A priest will then tie a cord of munja grass around her waist, beneath her upper garment, but on the outside of her lower one. Mantras are recited during this action (Jamison 43). When the wife is fit for ritual, she is then allowed to participate.
Perhaps the wife’s most important actions in the ritual are ‘taking hold from behind’ and looking at the butter. ‘Taking hold from behind involves “touching someone or something from behind, either with a hand or with some intermediary material like a blade of grass, while the other person is performing some action like pouring an oblation” (Jamison 53). While the Sacrificer is touching the sacrificial victim from behind, the wife is touching him from behind. “The Pratiprasthatar touches him [the victim] from behind with the two omentum skewers; the Adhavaryu (touches from behind) the Pratiprasthatar; the sacrificer the Adhvaryu” (Jamison 54). The wife also looks at the butter that will be used in the ritual, which is a metaphorical way of taking hold from behind. Eventually the wife will be unyoked and then given a broom, which will also be unyoked. She will take the strands from the broom and place them between her legs while reciting mantras.
Another Vedic ritual that the woman participates in is the ‘Varunapraghasa’. In this ritual, the wife is asked how many lovers she has. She is not given the opportunity to say “none”, because the answer of “none” would not serve the purpose of this ritual. The woman must confess to the sin of adultery in order to cleanse all of the others involved in this ritual. Then, the wife and husband offer meal dishes with a mantra. Then the priest will offer as a Ram and Ewe fashioned out of grasses or something similar, which was made prior to the wife’s confession. The Ram and Ewe have enlarged sexual organs to promote fertility.
The woman’s tasks are hers as she is the symbol of sexuality in the ritual. All of her roles are necessary because they all bring an essential sexuality to the rituals. “Women are perceived as the primary locus of active sexuality in ancient India. Therefore they act as the conduit to introduce sexual energy into the potentially sterile world of the orderly ritual. Their very presence traps sexuality and its power for ritual use.” (Jamison 53). Reviewing each of the wife’s tasks in the two rituals outlined above, it is apparent that each of her actions is either to bind her own sexual powers or to add sexuality to the ritual. At the start of the Srauta ritual, the wife must be made fit by binding her sexual body parts. Then, she must look at the butter. The wife’s looking at the butter is intended to add sexuality to the butter, to create a sexual pairing. This symbolizes the butter as semen. “Her glance conveys sexuality into the butter… (she) makes a sexual pair with it” (Jamison 56). “The wife is really a woman, the butter semen. A generative sexual pairing is thus made” (Jamison 56). Later, in the same ritual, the wife puts the blades of grass between her thighs. “Now as to why the wife unties (the broom). The wife is a woman/female, the broom is a man/masculine. In this way a procreative sexual pairing is made.
Perhaps the sexual nature of the second ritual is even more apparent. In this ritual, the woman is asked to confess to the entire group whom she has had sexual relations with. She is not given an opportunity to say none, as this would not allow the ritual to continue. Thus, the woman must point out whomever she has slept with. It seems, at first glance that this is perhaps a humiliating ritual, but it is in fact, not quite as such. It would also seem that the ritual would be interrupted by enraged husbands, but it is also not as such. This part of the ritual is necessary in order to raise the level of sexual energy. Such cannot be done with the discussion of marital sex, but must be done with the admission of a more taboo form of sex. In the wife’s admission of adultery, everyone at the ritual is then relieved of their sins. In a sense, the wife becomes a scapegoat, taking on the responsibility of relieving everyone involved of their sins. She is the scapegoat, because she is a symbol of untruth in this culture.
“The ritual is truth and reality. Woman is untruth. Indeed a wife
who, though bought by her husband, then goes about with others
and does untruth. Discharging her untruth, she approaches truth and
reality…So when he makes her talk [confess], he thus makes her
ritually fit” (Jamison 91).
In taking the responsibility for her own actions, even if she is only pretending that they were her actions, she is allowing her husband to be forgiven of any of his transgressions. It seems that in a patriarchal society, it is the husband that is much more likely than the wife to have committed any form of adultery.
It is quite interesting that a patriarchal society would have women so deeply interwoven into their religious ritual. However, it makes sense that her role would be tied to sexuality. Sexuality, being deeply interwoven with fertility, is crucial to a society. These rituals are heavily sexual, because they are intended to promote fertility. It is, however, a bit bothersome that women have only sexual roles in these rituals. It seems that the primary reason is that women are seen as perhaps, more sexual than men. This may be because of their ability to procreate and feed their young. Their burden from the act of sex is much greater, yet so are their rewards. They must endure the pain of childbirth, but are then rewarded with an additional closeness with their child that comes from breastfeeding, giving them a closer relationship with the fertility aspect of sex, which men are just not reproductively capable of. It seems that the ritual expresses that the man’s half of the sexual pairing comes from his semen. The butter, representative of the semen, must be sexualized by the woman however. This act of looking at the butter therefore becomes a representation of the woman coaxing the sexuality, and the semen out of her husband. Sex, without the woman is not sex, since there is no one available to coax the semen out of the man. Similarly, there is no ritual without the woman. There is no one to coax the man into his part in the ritual.
Whereas some may view the ritual as sexist in its sexualization of the woman, while simultaneously making her the scapegoat is a bit misogynistic, however, it seems that such is not the case in these rituals. The woman is necessary in these rituals, not just for her sexuality, but also for her femininity. In this culture, it is the woman’s femininity that makes her sexual, it is her femininity that completes the pair. The man is not capable of being both parts of the pair in this ritual, thus must enter the woman into it. She is crucial to the ritual, it cannot occur without her, and therefore, her importance minimizes the likelihood of a purely misogynistic culture, even though it is patriarchal.