THE DESERTED WIFE AND THE DANCING GIRL'S DAUGHTER S. Sriskandarajah & Robin McGlashan "The Deserted Wife and The Dancing Girl's Daughter" is an abridged English version of two classical Tamil epic poems, the Silappatikaram and the Manimekalai. In featuring determined women as their heroines, both poems strike a distinctively modern chord. The deserted wife challenges an absolute monarch who ordered the extra-judicial killing of her husband. The dancing girl's daughter resists the advances of a prince in order to follow her own chosen path. Probably composed in the fifth century AD, the poems reflect the values of the Jain and the Buddhist religions which held sway among the Tamil people at the time.