Walter Matthew Gallichan

“ Indian women in the mass do not think so. The rights to which religion and law entitle them are accorded duly behind the purdah. They are queens of the home, not active competitors with men in the scramble for existence. Their greatest ambition is to be women, and that ideal con- notes much that the woman of the West is discarding in scornful rebellion. Spinsterhood, and " the right to live one's own life," the supreme consummation of a large number of revolutionary British women- make no appeal to an Indian woman. ”

“ Far from India's being the land of the uniform oppression of women," writes Miss Margaret Noble, " by a uniform method, it represents the whole cycle of feminist institutions. There is literally no theory of feminine rights and position that does not find illustration somewhere within her boundaries."
The erotic valuation of women in India is not, as it may appear at first, a simple expression of sensuous- ness. It is something deeper, more subtle. Love and religion are intermingled, even in the zenana. ”

“ Steel, it is time for us to recognize that all the sexual virtues are not restricted to the West. It is to be regretted that missionary zeal has fostered the view in England that the women of India are merely the serfs of sensual, tyrannous men. As Mrs. Steel remarks, we have been told by the ordinary Anglo-Indian and the missionaries that India is " thoroughly degraded, hopelessly, helplessly de- praved, and utterly enslaved." Yet, in spite of polygamy, the Hindu woman's position compares very favourably with that of her Western sisters. ”

“ Let the white man man pause before he speaks in condemnation of " the abominable sexual practices " of the Orient.
One of the best-informed and most sympathetic writers upon Indian life is Mrs. Flora Annie Steel. This lady lived for many years in the East, and her volume " India " and her novels show how closely she has observed the people. Mrs. Steel's testimony, while it lacks the high enthusiasm of Miss Margaret Noble, is still very favourable concerning the position of Hindu women. She has the cosmopolitan, rather than the average Anglo-Indian, outlook. ”

“ There are " few happier households than Indian ones," says Mrs. Steel. Among the Jat and the Sikh villagers a charming camaraderie prevails between men and women. This is often the case where the sexes work side by side on an equality.
Unkindness to children is hardly known. We shall note that this virtue of parental love is almost univer- sal in Eastern countries. Divorce is practically un- known. To the Hindus marriage is a grave and sacred union. In wedlock the husband is " a perfect prey to his womenfolk, at any rate for some years." ”

“ It is true that woman makes a strong sensuous appeal to the Hindu, which he never conceals. But we must remember that " the sensual East " is also the home of the sternest renunciations of carnal pleasures, the strictest asceticism, the most severe penances and self-martyrdom ever known among humankind. No Western saint ever endured as much for the welfare of his soul as the self-imposed tor- ments of the Eastern priests, fakirs, and holy men, and women, in the suppression of desire. ”

“ Whether we approve polygamy, or de- nounce the practice, the truth remains that the men of the East are beloved by their wives, and that married discord is far less frequent than in the West. It is easy to attribute this fact to the subservience of women. We have seen that such subservience is far more apparent than actual. There is hardly a hint of it in the modern Hindu love-poetry.
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The point to observe is that the Hindus do not contemn any phase of the impulse that unites man to woman. ”

“ Hindu Love/' says:
' The primitive civilization and crude morality of the less advanced and educated Hindu are far better than any form of Western civilization. There is much in the East which the West should do well to adopt. Among the Hindus conjugal union is a thing to be kept inviolate as a sacred tie not to be dissolved even by death. The so-called emancipated and en- lightened females should learn from their benighted sisters how sacred the relation is between husband and wife. In the esti- mation of the Hindu female it is invested with a heavenly grandeur which passes all description. ”

“ She delights in white raiment, in fine jewels, and in rich dresses. She eats little, sleeps lightly, and being as respectful and religious as she is clever and courteous, she is ever anxious to worship the gods, and to enjoy the conversation of Brahmans. ”

“ The Hindu woman is usually short, and slight in build. Her complexion is a dark brown. In Kash- mir, the women are taller, and some have lighter com- plexions. The most statuesque forms among the women of India are said to be seen in Kashmir. ”

“ It is the white man who is accountable for the intro- duction of sexual vices unknown, or rarely practised, in the East before his coming. He has brought venereal disease, and implanted its mortal poisons in the blood of thousands of healthy primitive people. ”

“ CHAPTER VI THE CULT OF WOMAN AND LOVE SAKTI, the female deity, is Woman and Love, and Motherhood. She is worshipped by the intellectual class, the scribes and the clerks. Sakti is the men's goddess among a numerous following. ”

“ It is also a poetical, aesthetic valuation of the human body. It is the artist's loving appreciation of the form of man and woman, the spirit that animates Rodin when he con- fesses that, in his eyes, all women are beautiful. ”

“ In Persia and in India the code of sex morals in ancient times was almost cruel in its severity. The tradition still lives. It is true that mercenary commerce of the sexes is practised in the towns, but in a far less
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flagrant and callous manner than in the Western civilisations. ”

“ Steel says shrewdly that, though the monopoly of a man by his wife, as in Western marriage, is un- known in India, the sons are invariably monopolised by the mothers. The maternal authority is unques- tionable and autocratic. In the East generally, women are despotic over the men.* Nowhere are men so henpecked as in India. Wife-beating is ex- tremely rare, in spite of the assertiveness of the wives. There seems little doubt that the Hindu hus-
Op. cit. Mrs. Steel. 8l
band is conspicuous for his docility and patience. ”

“ In an original address on ' The Women of India,' at the Manor House Club, Bredon's Norton, yesterday, Mrs. Steel championed the superior domestic position of the Indian woman as against the European woman.
" According to Mrs. Steel the Eastern wife has a very easy time of it. She does not have to rise to prepare her hus- band's breakfast or that of her children, for the simple reason that having supped plentifully they do not require any break- fast beyond a chunk of food, to which they help themselves. And so throughout the day the Indian woman's domestic duties
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are of the lightest. ”