Social criticism, the ruinous wife
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बाइल तरी ऐसी व्हावी । नरकीं गोवी अनिवार॥1॥
घडों नेदी तीर्थयात्रा । केला कुतरा हातसोंका ॥ध्रु.॥
आपुली च करवी सेवा । पुजवी देवासारिखें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे गाढव पशु । केला नाशु आयुष्या ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
A wife of this sort will drag one into inescapable hell. She prevents pilgrimages and sacred journeys, turning the husband into a chained dog. She makes him serve her every whim and has herself worshipped like a deity. Says Tuka, the one yoked to such a person has been made a donkey; the whole span of life is laid to waste.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
A wife like this drags you into hell you cannot escape. She lets you go on no pilgrimage. She has made you a dog on a leash. She makes you serve her every wish. She has herself worshipped like a god. Tuka says: the man yoked to her is made a donkey, a beast; his whole life is wasted.
What it means
Tukaram is attacking a pattern, not a person: the way a household can be ruled by appetite and vanity until a man loses every road to God. He pictures the husband on a leash like a dog, kept from pilgrimage and made to wait on demands, while the one he serves is treated as a deity in the house. The harsh words for the wife are the poem's blunt picture of that domination. The point lands on the man's wasted years, and on the warning to examine where your own life is being spent and who you are really worshipping.
Social Criticism
Rebuke of hypocrisy, caste pride, false teachers, greed, and religious pretence.
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