According to Osho, he criticizes the role of 'wife' because patriarchal marriage turns a free woman into a conditioned identity, closing her doors of freedom, humiliating her soul, and breeding subtle, vengeful power games. His compassion honors the woman’s essence; his critique targets the man-made role that imprisons both sexes (especially women). He urges relationships beyond roles—rooted in freedom, equality, and authentic love.
He loves women, but says the 'wife' label—made by men’s rules—is a cage that hurts them and makes them react; he wants them free to love as themselves.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho! I have been listening to you for years, and I listened again yesterday. It seems that in general you honor women with deep compassion and appreciation. But when you speak of a woman in the role of a wife, you scold her and depict a very different image. Why is that?
An hour later, when he came out and walked back toward the ship with his friends, the friends began telling him what all they had done. They asked Gandhi what had happened. Poor fellow—what could he say! He kept it hidden. Later, years later, he wrote in his autobiography that nothing happened—nothing could have happened; he just sat there with eyes lowered. The woman took so much pity on him that she even returned his money. “Brother, take your money back. If the loss of the money grieves you, then at least take it back. And if you need anything, say so.” She felt such compassion: “What kind of man is this!” The ways women have always used in their behavior, rebellion, revenge—those are precisely what Gandhi used. He gave them sweet names—ahimsa, nonviolence; satyagraha, the force of truth. If a man gets angry, he will beat the woman; if…
Osho, having married, I’m ruined; no laughter now, only sighs. I’ve gone blind and can see no path. You tell me, show me the way—save me from my wife!
Ratan Singh Bharti! And you’re a Singh—a lion—yet look at the state you’re in! Bring your wife to me. Through her I’ll save you too. But if you want me to save you from your wife, that’s a tricky business! If I can save your wife, then through her you’ll be saved as well. If the wife is saved, you’ll be saved. But you want to be saved—and be saved from your wife! Such an impossible feat has never happened, nor can it! A group visiting the zoo from another city reached the lion’s cage. The lion let out a terrifying roar—so loud that everyone fainted except one man. A zoo official looked at him admiringly and said, “You seem very fearless!” The man replied, “Not at all. Actually, I’ve grown used to such roars every day.” “Do you work in a zoo too?” the official asked. “No,” the man…
Question: OSHO, HOW CAN INDIA BE FREE WHEN HER WOMEN ARE NOT? Why has no man ever burnt himself with his wife? The Indian scriptures say that love is so great, it is because of the greatness of love that women have been throwing themselves in with their dead husbands. I can agree it may be because of great love, but then why has no man...? In thousands of years not a single man has thrown himself into the funeral pyre of his wife. Does it mean that no man has ever loved, that only women love? This is a strange thing! And the mahatmas and the saints are absolutely silent about that. There is a double standard about everything. The woman in India has not been allowed to read the Vedas the Upanishads, for the simple reason that she is 'impure'. Why is a woman impure?
Osho, in answer to a question you said: Don’t make your wife miserable. Don’t be in a hurry for sannyas. If you hurry, you yourself will become a wall between me and your wife. Osho, exactly this has happened to me. Why does it feel almost impossible to take one’s wife along? Is the very longing wrong?
Psychologists have now concluded that a human being has two brains, not one. The right hand is connected to the left hemisphere. The left hemisphere is “masculine.” That is why we have given superiority to the right hand—right hand the brahmin, left hand the shudra! In English there is even the saying, “Right is right and left is wrong,” because the right hand symbolizes the masculine. The left hemisphere, connected to the right hand, argues, calculates, runs business, discovers science; it is aggressive, violent, political. And the right hemisphere is connected to the left hand; it is feminine. There poetry is born, beauty is felt, love arises. There is no arithmetic, no logic; there is feeling, intuition. Between these two brains we have not yet built a proper bridge. A woman thinks differently, a man thinks differently; dialogue between them is hardly possible. Yes, if the relationship is of love,…
Osho, what is the definition of God?
Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…