Women in Sikhism - Sutak and Celibacy

Sutak and Celibacy

In another stanza in the Asa ki Var, Guru Nanak Dev Ji rejects the prevalent superstition of sutak, the belief that a woman giving birth to a child is unclean for a given number of days depending upon the caste to which she belongs:

"The impurity of the mind is greed, and the impurity of the tongue is falsehood. The impurity of the eyes is to gaze upon the beauty of another man's wife, and his wealth. The impurity of the ears is to listen to the slander of others. O Nanak, the mortal's soul goes, bound and gagged, to the city of Death. All impurity comes from doubt and attachment to duality. Birth and death are subject to the Command of the Lord's Will; through His Will we come and go." (GG, 472)

Instead of celibacy and renunciation, Guru Nanak recommended grhastha—the life of a householder. Husband and wife were equal partners and fidelity was enjoined upon both. In sacred verse, domestic happiness was presented as a cherished ideal and marriage provided a running metaphor for the expression of love for the Divine. Bhai Gurdas Ji, poet of early Sikhism and authoritative interpreter of Sikh doctrine, pays high tribute to women. He says:

"A woman, is the favourite in her parental home, loved dearly by her father and mother. In the home of her in-laws, she is the pillar of the family, the guarantee of its good fortune... Sharing in spiritual wisdom and enlightenment and with noble qualities endowed, a woman, the other half of man, escorts him to the door of liberation." (Varan, V.16)