CHAPTER I.
ON THE MANNER OF LIVING OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN, AND OF HER BEHAVIOUR DURING THE ABSENCE OF HER HUSBAND.
A virtuous woman, who has affection for her husband, should act in conformity with his wishes as if he were a divine being, and with his consent should take upon herself the whole care of his family.

She should keep the whole house well cleaned, and arrange flowers of various kinds in different parts of it, and make the floor smooth and polished so as to give the whole a neat and becoming appearance.

She should surround the house with a garden, and place ready in it all the materials required for the morning, noon and even sacrifices.

Moreover she should herself revere the sanctuary of the Household Gods, for says Gonardiya, "nothing so much attracts the heart of a householder to his wife as a careful observance of the things mentioned above." Towards the parents, relations, friends, sisters, and servants of her husband she should behave as they deserve.

In the garden she should plant beds of green vegetables, bunches of the sugar cane, and clumps of the fig tree, the mustard plant, the parsley plant, the fennel plant, and the xanthochymus pictorius.