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“Whom did you lose first, yourself or me?” Draupadi asked Yudhishthira when the latter lost her as a stake in a gamble. Yudhishthira had lost himself first, in fact. He was not his own master when he staked his (as well as his four brothers’) wife. Even if he had not lost that game and even if he was the sole husband of that woman, was he her owner who could stake her like a material possession? Is the wife a property of the husband? Is a ruler the owner of what he...
