Reading guide
A direct denial of four powers at once
The discourse names attractiveness, wealth, relatives, and children together in a single negated clause, denying all four as causes of good rebirth in one sentence rather than addressing each separately.
One cause, stated affirmatively
The matching positive clause names ethical behavior alone as the actual cause — not one cause among several, but the specific cause this discourse isolates to the exclusion of the other four.
The same claim, a third register
Family acceptance (SN 37.30), self-assurance (implicit throughout SN 37.25–27's own framing), and now rebirth: this vagga returns to ethical behavior's decisive role in three distinct contexts, each stated independently rather than derived from the others.
Key terms
The text
§1“Mendicants, there are these five powers of a lady. What five? Attractiveness, wealth, relatives, children, and ethical behavior. It is not because of the powers of attractiveness, wealth, relatives, or children that ladies, when their body breaks up, after death, are reborn in a good place, a heavenly realm. It is because of the power of ethical behavior that ladies, when their body breaks up, after death, are reborn in a good place, a heavenly realm. These are the five powers of a lady.”
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