I admit I learned about sex from books–The Joy of Sex and Kama Sutra among them. I saw a passage that was occured a least twice in the Sutra that intrigued me. It says that under no circumstances should a man marry a woman named after a flower. I wonder why the author wrote that passage in there? I think that it might have been a private joke lost in time. Any other suggestions and answers?
This is a lovely question. Can you give the specific example in the Kama Sutra?
Lacking that, off the top o’ my head, I’ll have to go by the bit I know. In Eastern tradition, a flower is looked upon as an allegory for the cultivation and flourishing of Mind. Especially, to Buddhists, the Lotus flower, which rises above the murk of the pond, and exists as beauty beyond it’s origin. Perhaps that’s the crux of the biscuit (Frank Zappa). You don’t want to have to deal with somebody’s daddy who would assign to to them the flower of all existence. Too much weight of family predisposition.
I could well be wrong, and would like to hear your specific passages. The Kama Sutra is a beautiful book.
Do Tell.
Complements of bibliomania (my physical book is buried somewhere), I have this
From the Chapter “On Marriage”, there was a part that lists what women should be avoided, then there is this passage:
“In the same way a girl who is called by the name of one of the twenty-seven stars, or by the name of a tree, or of a river, is considered worthless, as also a girl whose name ends in r' or l’. But some authors say that prosperity is gained only by marrying that girl to whom one becomes attached, and that therefore no other girl but the one who is loved should be married by anyone.”
I’d admit that the author is reciting conflicting opinions here.
Take a good look at the people who wrote the Karma Sutra in the first place, especially now, in this day and age, think about where their great enlightening philosophies have gotten them, observe the intense over population, the restriction of women to virtual property, the insistence on bathing and dumping everything into the Holy Ganges River, which by now is about one of the most polluted rivers in the known world, and then rethink your question.
In the patriarchal society which spawned the book, aside from sex and waiting hand and foot on males, a woman is good for little else. In such societies, they always have scores of reasons not to marry, trust, couple with, or even befriend women.
India and Pakistan today are a mess. Women in India, after marriage, die in mysterious ways, allowing the husband to keep her dowry and marry again. Ways like scalded to death because she was clumsy with that caldron of boiling wash water, she was ignorant and accidentally took poison (yeah, right!), she fell under the wheels of an ox cart, fell off of a roof, fell down stairs, someone entered the house and brained her, she fell on a knife and so on. The law doesn’t investigate such things hardly at all. The husbands aren’t real crazy about the effort to teach women how not to have kids or to gain an education beyond reading and writing and the village.
Consider the source.
Marry whom you love and who loves you. Seek out a soul mate, one who will know more about you the first time you meet than you can ever tell her and you her.
Correction: the first time you meet than you can ever tell her and you her … should be …she you. 
I would like a source that proves women in india have higher rates of domestic violence and murder than other semi-developed nations.
Women were treated throughout history as property. What does that have to do with the OP???
That’s like saying suitcases are property, that’s why you don’t get a suitcase brand/model named after a flower?!?!
If you want to post on how women are treated as property - I suggest you start a new thread, If you are using that to show some relationship to the OP, then do it.
no way would i marry let alone have intercouse with someone called buttercup,daffodil,clemitis,call it a horticultural phobia.
You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think…
The Kama Sutra isn’t strictly about pleasing the Man. Much of it deals with the Mans needs to please the Woman. I don’t believe the Kama Sutra is any indication of sexism within a culture, It’s a glorification of “Making Love”, and a guide book if nothing more to having wonderful sex. There are of course references that would make you believe it was somewhat “religious”, but it’s only matter of fact for it to be written that way because of the culture it derives from. Parts about stalks and lotus flowers are used as metaphors for our (for some odd “christian” reason?) societies fears of mentioning our more “discreet” parts, the penis and vagina. Though the metaphors arent’ used as substitutes but meant as poetry to make it all seem more beautiful. The sutra was written with the intent of enlightening lovers to loving each other physically and becoming much more stimulating to one another.
It’s hard to understand Eastern Culture for me much because I didn’t grow up with it, but I would imagine that the part about girls named after flowers is in reference to spoiled women as well. A flower is in some regards somewhat sacred, though not by western standards, in a way that elevates the girl being named after a flower to some higher status. I think the author is saying something like, Don’t mess around with the hoity toity rich chick, she’ll screw you over in the end, and she’s most likely already condemned to marry someone her father chose for her…etc.
That’s more my opinion though.
Are you in college? High School? Niether? Is there perhaps a teacher or proffessor you could ask? You may want to try some Buddhist or Hindu websites to see if they have a question and answer section…
I would like a source that proves women in india have higher rates of domestic violence and murder than other semi-developed nations. **
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When I took an anthropolgy course, we read an article on “missing women.” It seems that the number of women born and the number women present in countries like China, India, Iran and Iraq is uneven. There was even some evidence of baby girls born, but not recorded. You may want to try checking out anthropolgy texts or maybe see if the United Nations have any info on this, or maybe check out Ms. magazine. A lot of this stuff has been recorded but does not get a lot of attention, very sad. Makes me glad I live in the U.S. where I can freely bitch at my hubby.
That, plus the fact that the pages are probably sticking together.
Bwaa ha ha ha!
In some eastern cultures, a girl being named after a flower generally implies said woman lacks fidelity. You know, flowers on the road side that everyone gets to see and pick up? Well, that’s what it usually means I think…
How the hell could you tell she was infidel when she’s first born? Or does the name “cause” her to become disloyal? (Supposedly that is.) Futhermore, why would anyone as a result name their daughter after said flower? or is that why no one has as a result in these cultures? It just seems very illogical to me that someone being named after a flower takes on those characteristics, is all.
know any thin Bertha’s? It is funny how some names goes with some charistics
You could always get nicknames from people I guess… even nowadays in Chinese, calling someone a flower is the same as saying someone flirts too much… Some of these things aren’t always logical though. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were a result of fortune telling, how being named after a flower bestows a certain character upon a person. In the old days, picking a Chinese name would often involve the service of fortune tellers. They would calculate what elements of nature you need to put in your name (remember Chinese characters are ideograms), whether or not the number of strokes that are required to spell your name are in harmony with your birthday and what not, etc. etc. People believed the way you named your children would have a profound influence on their lives, which is true to some degree, just not as much as some believe…
I’m doing this from memory, so this may not be 100% accurate.
In hinduism there are 4 paths to enlightenment.
dharma (correct social and moral behavior)
artha (material wealth and comfort)
kama (physical pleasure and sex)
kaivalya (I may have this wrong but it is like some balance of the other three or something)
Each of these paths has a religious text (sutra) written about it. Therefore the kama sutra is definately a religous text. Kama sutra very nearly translates to “book of love (that’s physical love)” or “making love by the book”.
In addition to being a manual on sex, it also contains the useful knowledge of how to charm women in a manner so that you may sleep with them without their knowledge (ruffies?), and how to get rid of your lover’s husband. This text was written as an instruction manual for men, is remarkably sexist, and is horribly out of date. It was assembled about 2000 years ago from existing manuals on lovemaking and the like, some of which were ancient at that time.
The part about a girl named after a flower is a bit of 2000+ year old Indian folk wisdom and it may not be possible to figure out why Indians felt this was important so long ago.
The fourth is mokSa – spiritual liberation.
For that you need a lot of determination, gumption, and fortitude. The origin of Moxie?
Remember that the Kama Sutra is a religious and cultural text. The edict you’re asking about is as likely to be a simple superstition as a well thought out philosophy. Or it could be that the author’s caste or culture did not name girls after flowers, so marrying someone name after a flower meant you were marrying outside of your caste or culture (since the author would assume that the reader was a member of his caste)