"The ideal of woman in India is the mother, the mother first, and the mother last. The word woman calls up to the mind of the Hindu, motherhood. . .that marvellous, unselfish, all-suffering, ever-forgiving mother." And the mother "deserved worship" because she "was a saint in bringing. . .[her child] into the world" by keeping "her body pure, her mind pure, her food pure, her clothes pure, her imagination pure, for years" in expectation of becoming a mother.
Swami Vivekananda
(With a view to demonstrating the universality of the Hindu apotheosis of motherhood, he provided an example from contemporary Europe)
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