The practice of "voluntary" widow-burning is, as the foregoing shows,
about as convincing proof of wifely devotion as the presence of an ox
in the butcher's stall is proof of his gastronomic devotion to man. In
reality it is, as I have said, simply the most diabolical aspect of
man's aboriginal disposition to look on woman as made solely for his
own comfort and pleasure, here and hereafter. Now it is very
instructive to note that whenever there is a story of conjugal
devotion in Oriental or ancient classical literature it is nearly
always inspired by the same spirit--the idea that the woman, as an
inferior being, should subject herself to any amount of suffering if
she can thereby save her sacred lord and master the slightest pang.
For instance, an old Arabic writer (Kamil Mobarrad, p. 529) relates
how a devoted wife whose husband was condemned to death disfigured her
beautiful face in order to let him die with the consoling feeling that
she would not marry again. The current notion that such stories are
proof of conjugal devotion is the fifth of the mistakes to be
corrected in this chapter. These stories were written by men, selfish
men, who intended them as lessons to indicate to the women what was
expected of them. Were it otherwise, why should not the men, too, be
represented, at least occasionally, as devoted and self-sacrificing?
Hector is tender to Andromache, and in the Sanscrit drama, _Kanisika's
Wrath,_ the King and the Queen contend with one another as to who
shall be the victim of that wrath; but these are the only instances of
the kind that occur to me. This interesting question will be further
considered in the chapters on India and Greece, where corroborative
stories will be quoted. Here I wish only to emphasize again the need
of caution and suspicion in interpreting the evidence relating to the
human feelings.