Marriage and Wife – Ramakrishna

Sri Ramakrishna: “Pratap’s brother came here. He stayed a few days. He had nothing to do and said he wanted to live here. I came to know that he had left his wife and children with his father-in-law. He has a whole brood of them! So I took him to task. Just fancy! He is the father of so many children! Will people from the neighbourhood feed them and bring them up? He isn’t even ashamed that someone else is feeding his wife and children, and that they have been left at his father-in-law’s house. I scolded him very hard and asked him to look for a job. Then he was willing to leave here.

“Are you married?”

M: “Yes, sir.”

The Master continued, “Have you any children?”

M.  “Yes, sir, I have children.”

Holier than thou ?

After a few minutes Sri Ramakrishna looked at him kindly and said affectionately: “Tell me, now, what kind of person is your wife? Has she spiritual attributes, or is she under the power of avidya?”

M: “She is all right. But I am afraid she is ignorant.”

Master (with evident displeasure): “And you are a man of knowledge!”

M. had yet to learn the distinction between knowledge and ignorance. Up to this time his conception had been that one got knowledge from books and schools. Later on he gave up this false conception. He was taught that to know God is knowledge, and not to know Him, ignorance. When Sri Ramakrishna exclaimed, “And you are a man of knowledge!”, M.’s ego was again badly shocked.

On other occasions, in other conversations, the Master spoke about Marriage as follows:

Sakti alone is the root of the universe. That Primal Energy has two aspects : vidya and avidya. Knowledge and Ignorance. Avidya, Ignorance deludes. Avidya conjures up sex and money which cast the spell. Vidya, Knowledge, begets devotion, kindness, wisdom, and love, which lead one to God. This Vidya must be propitiated, and that is the purpose of the rites of Sakti worship. One must strive to win or regain the favor of Sakti by worshipping Her. Women are, all of them, the veritable images of Sakti. In northwest India, the bride holds a knife in her hand at the time of marriage. The meaning is that the bridegroom, with the help of the bride, who is the embodiment of the Divine Power, will sever the bondage of illusion. This is the ‘ heroic ’ attitude. The bride is the very embodiment of Sakti. Haven’t you noticed, at the marriage ceremony, how the groom sits behind like an idiot ? But the bride—she is so bold.

A wife endowed with spiritual wisdom is a real partner in life. She greatly helps her husband to follow the religious path. After the birth of one or two children they live like brother and sister. Both of them are devotees of God — His servant and His handmaid. Their family is a spiritual family. They are always happy with God and His devotees. They know that God alone is their own, from everlasting to everlasting. They are like the Pandava brothers. They do not forget God, in happiness or in sorrow.

“Once a man realizes God through intense dispassion, he is no longer attached to woman. Even if he must lead the life of a householder, he is free from fear of and attachment to woman. Suppose there are two magnets, one big and the other small. Which one will attract the iron? The big one, of course. God is the big magnet. Compared to Him, woman is a small one. 

A DEVOTEE: “Sir, shall we hate women then?”

MASTER: “He who has realized God does not look upon a woman with the eye of lust; so he is not afraid of her. He perceives clearly that women are but so many aspects of the Divine Mother. He worships them all as the Mother Herself.

Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
By Mahendranath Gupta (“M”), His Disciple
Translated from the Bengali by Swami Nikhilananda