r lies before I lie down. She rejoices if
I rejoice, and becomes sorry when I am sorry. When I am away she becomes
cheerless, and when I am angry she ceases not to speak sweetly. Ever
devoted to her lord and ever relying upon her lord, she was ever employed
in doing what was agreeable to and beneficial for her lord. Worthy of
praise is that person on earth who owns such a spouse. That amiable
creature knows that I am fatigued and hungry. Devoted to me and constant
in her love, my famous spouse is exceedingly sweet-tempered and worships
me devoutly. Even the foot of a tree is one's home if one lives there
with one's spouse as a companion. Without one's spouse, a very palace is
truly a desolate wilderness. One's spouse is one's associate in all one's
acts of Virtue, Profit and Pleasure. When one sets out for a strange land
one's wife is one's trusted companion. It is said that the wife is the
richest possession of her lord. In this world the wife is the only
associate of her lord in all the concerns of life.[433] The wife is ever
the best of medicines that one can have in sickness and woe. There is no
friend like unto the wife. There is no refuge better than the wife. There
is no better ally in the world than the wife in acts undertaken for the
acquisition of religious merit. He that has not in his house a wife that
is chaste and of agreeable speech, should go to the woods. For such a man
there is no difference between home and wilderness.'"'"

SECTION CXLV

"'Bhishma said, "Hearing those piteous lamentations of the pigeon on the
tree, the she-pigeon seized by the fowler began to say to herself as
follows.

"'"The she-pigeon said, 'Whether I have any merit or not, verily there is
no limit to any good fortune when my dear lord thus speaks of me. She is
no wife with whom her lord is not content. In the case of women, if their
lords be gratified with them all the deities also become so. Since the
marriage union takes place in the presence of fire, the husband is the
wife's highest deity. That wife with whom her husband is not pleased
becomes consumed into ashes, even like a creeper adorned with bunches of
flowers in a forest conflagration.' Having reflected thus, the
she-pigeon, afflicted with woe, and immured by the fowler within his
cage, thus spoke unto her woe-stricken lord, 'I shall say what is now
beneficial for thee. Hearing me follow thou my counsel. O dear lord, be
thou the rescuer of a suppliant. This fowler