सोऽहमद्यैव दिष्टान्तं गमिष्यामि पतिव्रता।
इदं शरीरमालिङ्ग्य प्रवेक्ष्यामि हुताशनम्॥
so ’ham adyaiva diṣṭāntaṁ gamiṣyāmi pati-vratā
idaṁ śarīram āliṅgya pravekṣyāmi hutāśanam
saḥ aham = I; adya eva = today itself; diṣṭa-antam = die; gamiṣyāmi = I will; pati-vratā = as a woman sworn to her husband; idam = this; śarīram = body; āliṅgya = will embrace; pravekṣyāmi = and enter; huta-aśanam = and into fire.
As a woman sworn to her husband, I will die today itself. I will embrace this body and enter into fire.
1 That queen Kausalyā was sworn to her husband like this is also clear from Daśaratha’s description of Kausalyā in his conversation with Kaikeyī earlier in this Canto. Then why didn’t she die when her husband had died? Because she had a son. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, 1.7.45 notes that Droṇācaryā’s wife Krpī did not die after he had died because she had a son and that her son represented his father. Śrīla Prabhupāda has commented, “A devoted wife, who is according to revealed scripture the better half of her husband, is justified in embracing voluntary death along with her husband if she is without issue. But in the case of the wife of Droṇācārya, she did not undergo such a trial because she had her son, the representative of her husband. A widow is a widow only in name if there is a son of her husband existing.”
“As a woman sworn to her husband” refers to a pati-vratā woman described as follows:
ārtārte mudite hṛṣṭā proṣite malinā kṛśā
mṛte mriyeta yā patyau sā strī jñeyā pati-vratā
“A woman who is distressed when her husband is distressed, who is happy when he is happy, who keeps herself unattractive or emaciated when he has gone out of station and who dies when he dies is to be known as a pati-vratā.”1 (Bṛhat Hārīta-smṛti 8.198)
NOTE. While this was the norm for proper social behavior for women in the past, in today’s world the norm is something else. Prabhupāda explains:
As for behavior, there are many rules and regulations guiding human behavior, such as the Manu-saṁhitā, which is the law of the human race. Even up to today, those who are Hindu follow the Manu-saṁhitā. Laws of inheritance and other legalities are derived from this book. Now, in the Manu-saṁhitā it is clearly stated that a woman should not be given freedom. That does not mean that women are to be kept as slaves, but they are like children. Children are not given freedom, but that does not mean that they are kept as slaves. The demons have now neglected such injunctions, and they think that women should be given as much freedom as men. However, this has not improved the social condition of the world. Actually, a woman should be given protection at every stage of life. She should be given protection by the father in her younger days, by the husband in her youth, and by the grownup sons in her old age. This is proper social behavior according to the Manu-saṁhitā. But modern education has artificially devised a puffed-up concept of womanly life, and therefore marriage is practically now an imagination in human society. The social condition of women is thus not very good now, although those who are married are in a better condition than those who are proclaiming their so-called freedom. (Bhagavad-gītā 16.7 purport)