Tirukkamba ramayanam,thirukkural,wife-On Virtue-The Helpmate-kamba ramayanam,thirukkural,wife 57

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Ciraikakkun kappuevan ceyyum makalir
Niraikakkun kappe talai.

A good translation of this kamba ramayanam,thirukkural,wife is given below, following the lines of Thiru K Srinivasan:

Of what avail is watch and ward? A woman's will is the best safeguard of her honour.
Prison walls, pad-locks and chastity belts are absolutely of no use to ensure a woman's chastity.

Her own conscience and inner strength will alone keep her really pure. She must feel as Shakespeare has said in one of his earlier or dark comedies:

'My chastity is the jewel of our house bequeathed down from many ancestors'.

In this context, the following lines of the Bible are relevant:

Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come'.

This point is brought out elegantly in Kambaramayanam also in the following passage, where the poet asks rhetorically what protected Sita? Was it Rama's Dharma? Or her father Janaka's good Karma? Or was it the strength of her own chastity?

...Poovai Karperum
Irunjirai thenaa vidanam neenginaal
Dharmamae kaathadho sanakan nalavinaik
Karumamae kaathadho karpin kaavalo