Chapter 978
[←968]
How wise and grand, how far-seeing and morally beneficent are the laws of Manu on connubial life, when compared with the licence tacitly allowed to man in civilized countries. That those laws have been neglected for the last two millenniums does not prevent us from admiring their forethought. The Brâhman was a Grihasta, a family man, till a certain period of his life, when, after begetting a son, he broke with married life and became a chaste Yogi. His very connubial life was regulated by his Brâhman astrologer in accordance with his nature. Therefore, in such countries as the Punjâb, for instance, where the lethal influence of Mussulman, and later on of European, licentiousness, has hardly touched the orthodox Âryan castes, one still finds the finest men—so far as stature and physical strength go—on the whole Globe; whereas the mighty men of old have found themselves replaced in the Deccan, and especially in Bengal, by men whose generation becomes with every century—and almost with every year—dwarfed and weakened.