Transactional Relationships

Parimelazhagar groups three things under ‘double-intentioned women, liquor, and dice’: women of divided intention, intoxicating drink, and gambling. He defines the divided mind as being simultaneously inclined both to unite with and not unite with one man. He treats ‘dice’ as a metonym for gambling, says liquor and gambling are included because they share a like fault, and notes a parallel Sanskrit classification called விதனம். He explains ‘companions of those abandoned by Thiru’ as the friendship of these three with people forsaken by Thirumagal, the goddess Fortune, and further calls them signs of her withdrawal; the list also bridges into the following chapter on avoiding drink. The chapter-ending note also gives an ancient low-status label to those who associate with the women described in its final four verses. These are severe historical gendered, status, and religious judgements: they are reported here, not endorsed. Poverty, job loss, debt, illness, addiction, victimization, or bad luck is never evidence of vice or divine rejection, and the verse gives no modern warrant to demean women, sex workers, drinkers, gamblers, or any identity. A bounded modern reading may examine hidden relational purpose, unsafe impairment, and chance wagering separately; it must not turn the enumeration into a causal chain.