"Yatra Nari Astu Pujyante, Ramante Tatra Devataa" The Gods reside in places where woman is worshiped --- Manu Smriti
"Women are worthy of worship. They are the fate of the household, the lamp of enlightenment for all in the household. They bring solace to the family and are an integral part of Dharmic life. Even heaven is under the control of women. The Gods reside in those households where women are worshipped and in households where women are slighted all efforts at improvement go in vain."Manusmriti 3-56
"The wife should do Agnihotra (yagna), Sandhyavandana and all other daily religious rituals. If, for some reason, her husband is not present, the woman alone has full rights to do yagna." Rigveda Samhita, part 1, sukta 79, sloka 872.
"The home has, verily, its foundation in the wife"
- The Rig Veda
During the Vedic age, more than 3,000 years ago, women were assigned a high place in society. They shared an equal standing with their men folk and enjoyed a kind of liberty that actually had societal sanctions. The ancient Hindu philosophical concept of'shakti', the feminine principle of energy, was also a product of this age.
Hinduism recognizes both the masculine and feminine attributes of the Divine, and that without honoring the feminine aspects, one cannot claim to know God in his entirety. So we also have many male-female divine-duos like Radha-Krishna, Sita-Rama, Uma-Mahesh, and Lakshmi-Narayan, where the female form is usually addressed first.
Women, who so desired, could undergo the sacred thread ceremony or 'Upanayana' (a sacrament to pursue Vedic studies), which is only meant for males even to this day. The mention of female scholars and sages of the Vedic age like Vac, Ambhrni, Romasa, Gargi, Khona in the Vedic lore corroborates this view. These highly intelligent and greatly learned women, who chose the path of Vedic studies, were called 'brahmavadinis', and women who opted out of education for married life were called 'sadyovadhus'. Co-education seems to have existed in this period and both the sexes got equal attention from the teacher. Moreover, ladies from the Kshatriya caste received martial arts courses and arms training.
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