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        There is great pride taken over the status accorded to women in Vedic times. They are even today equated with Shakti, the Mother Goddess.

        There is a Sanskrit verse which says that, in the first aeon (yuga), Renuka, wife of Jamadagni, was Shakti, in the next aeon (treta), it was Sita, in Dwapara, Draupadi and in the current aeon the wife in every house.

        Practitioners of the principle of the mental mettle of Ramakrishna Pramahamsa treated their wives as Parashakti but those without that mental strength were hypocrites.

        Indeed the exalted status originally given to women got subverted in the post-puranic period of dharma sastras. The wife was asked to treat the husband as God incarnate.

        Such male chauvinism was the force behind the rewriting of texts, the aim of which was to prevent women from learning Sanskrit and the Vedas.

        Important segments of the Vedas came out through 36 women scholars. When asked why then discriminate against women, the answer always is that they were Brahmavadinis.

        Women got reduced to the state of slaves. An ethical text says that they should be given no freedom, having to be subject to the father in childhood, to the husband and then to her sons if the husband is dead.