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TWO: The Rape of the False Mother

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The Bedtrick
This chapter is in the book The Bedtrick
TWO The Rape of the False Mother SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN ANCIENT INDIA The myth of committing adultery with one's own wife may be a married man's fantasy, but the wife may have fantasies of her own,l and she may view this same plot either as one in which she seduces him or as one in which he rapes her. These various points of view may be expressed in a single myth,z and this complex pattern may be applied to stories about goddesses, women with magical powers, and human women, though the mechanisms by which the tricks take place and the theological implications are certainly different in each instance. Let us, as we did in chapter 1, begin with gods and then descend to the human. The myth we considered at the start of chapter 1, the seduction of Shiva by a Parvati whom he mistakes for someone else, is the inversion of a series of myths we are about to consider, the seduction of Shiva by someone whom he mistakes for Parvati, often retold in the same texts that tell the stories of Shiva and Parvati that we considered in chapter 1. On some of the many occasions when Shiva and Parvati quarrel about a game of dice,3 Parvati does not transform herself into a seductive foreign or tribal woman but, on the contrary, begins with a dark skin and goes off to change it for a golden skin. In one variant of this story, Shiva, tormented by unsatisfied desire, mistakes Savitri, the high-class wife of the god Brahma, for Parvati (she "resembled Parvati in all her qualities," says the text) and begs her to make love with him. Savitri rebuffs him ("You fool, you should apologize to your wife instead of trying to take another man's wife") and curses him so that he makes love to a human woman, which results in yet another divine bedtrick (with Princess Tara-vatit).4 Another variant of this myth, in a late medieval Sanskrit text, begins with the same premise-that Parvati goes off to obtain a golden 69
© 2022 University of Chicago Press

TWO The Rape of the False Mother SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN ANCIENT INDIA The myth of committing adultery with one's own wife may be a married man's fantasy, but the wife may have fantasies of her own,l and she may view this same plot either as one in which she seduces him or as one in which he rapes her. These various points of view may be expressed in a single myth,z and this complex pattern may be applied to stories about goddesses, women with magical powers, and human women, though the mechanisms by which the tricks take place and the theological implications are certainly different in each instance. Let us, as we did in chapter 1, begin with gods and then descend to the human. The myth we considered at the start of chapter 1, the seduction of Shiva by a Parvati whom he mistakes for someone else, is the inversion of a series of myths we are about to consider, the seduction of Shiva by someone whom he mistakes for Parvati, often retold in the same texts that tell the stories of Shiva and Parvati that we considered in chapter 1. On some of the many occasions when Shiva and Parvati quarrel about a game of dice,3 Parvati does not transform herself into a seductive foreign or tribal woman but, on the contrary, begins with a dark skin and goes off to change it for a golden skin. In one variant of this story, Shiva, tormented by unsatisfied desire, mistakes Savitri, the high-class wife of the god Brahma, for Parvati (she "resembled Parvati in all her qualities," says the text) and begs her to make love with him. Savitri rebuffs him ("You fool, you should apologize to your wife instead of trying to take another man's wife") and curses him so that he makes love to a human woman, which results in yet another divine bedtrick (with Princess Tara-vatit).4 Another variant of this myth, in a late medieval Sanskrit text, begins with the same premise-that Parvati goes off to obtain a golden 69
© 2022 University of Chicago Press

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. CONTENTS vii
  3. Preface: Why a Book about a Bedtrick? xiii
  4. Acknowledgments xxix
  5. Introduction: Sex, Text, and Masquerade 1
  6. ONE: How to Commit Adultery with Your Own Spouse 13
  7. Approach One: Philosophy, or Love/Sex = Mind/Body? 56
  8. TWO: The Rape of the False Mother 69
  9. Approach Two: Psychology 91
  10. THREE: Waking Up in Bed with an Animal 105
  11. Approach Three: Zoology 129
  12. FOUR: The Lovely/Loathly Lady 140
  13. Approach Four: Feminism, or Women Are Good to Think With 187
  14. FIVE: The Cuckolds of the Heart 205
  15. Approach Five: Theology, or When God Has Lipstick on His Collar 228
  16. SIX: Designated Hitters 237
  17. Approach Six: Law, or Loopholes in the Penal Code 284
  18. SEVEN: Color, Class, and Clout 292
  19. Approach Seven: Weapons of the Weak 329
  20. EIGHT: Cross-Cultural Cross-Dressing 335
  21. Approach Eight: Queer Theory and the Theater of Deception 376
  22. NINE: Incest 383
  23. Approach Nine: Sexual Rhetoric 396
  24. TEN: Real Sex and Fantastic Sex 412
  25. Approach Ten: Structuralism 466
  26. Conclusion: Carnal Ignorance and Carnal Knowledge 475
  27. Appendix: Bedtricks in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index 493 493
  28. Notes 497
  29. Bibliography 535
  30. Filmography: Double Features: Bedtricks (and Related Plots) on Film 567
  31. Index and Glossary 577
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https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226156446-006

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. CONTENTS vii
  3. Preface: Why a Book about a Bedtrick? xiii
  4. Acknowledgments xxix
  5. Introduction: Sex, Text, and Masquerade 1
  6. ONE: How to Commit Adultery with Your Own Spouse 13
  7. Approach One: Philosophy, or Love/Sex = Mind/Body? 56
  8. TWO: The Rape of the False Mother 69
  9. Approach Two: Psychology 91
  10. THREE: Waking Up in Bed with an Animal 105
  11. Approach Three: Zoology 129
  12. FOUR: The Lovely/Loathly Lady 140
  13. Approach Four: Feminism, or Women Are Good to Think With 187
  14. FIVE: The Cuckolds of the Heart 205
  15. Approach Five: Theology, or When God Has Lipstick on His Collar 228
  16. SIX: Designated Hitters 237
  17. Approach Six: Law, or Loopholes in the Penal Code 284
  18. SEVEN: Color, Class, and Clout 292
  19. Approach Seven: Weapons of the Weak 329
  20. EIGHT: Cross-Cultural Cross-Dressing 335
  21. Approach Eight: Queer Theory and the Theater of Deception 376
  22. NINE: Incest 383
  23. Approach Nine: Sexual Rhetoric 396
  24. TEN: Real Sex and Fantastic Sex 412
  25. Approach Ten: Structuralism 466
  26. Conclusion: Carnal Ignorance and Carnal Knowledge 475
  27. Appendix: Bedtricks in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index 493 493
  28. Notes 497
  29. Bibliography 535
  30. Filmography: Double Features: Bedtricks (and Related Plots) on Film 567
  31. Index and Glossary 577
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