landing, and here it was that we sat, under a sky that was like a pink
opal, while the swallows and the yellow-beaked _mainas_, and crows,
flew overhead to roost. Bats there were too--“devil’s mice”--flapping
the sleep out of their wings: and now, a red-brown throated, red-brown
coated _brahmini-kite_, to whom the women made prayerful salutation. A
kingfisher had just flashed past, bright as the sea at noonday, bright
even in that darkening light, and knowing the reverence of the Rajputni
for the kingfisher, I thought the gentle courtesy his.
It was _Nanni-Ma_, Baby’s Grandmother, she who had the face of victory
over death, who explained. “_Kali Ma_ chose once to take that form,”
she said, inclining her head towards the red-brown one. A sudden swoop
brought him almost within reach of the baby plaything and those lonely
widow-women, and with terror in loving eyes the child was clasped
close. Who shall tell what mixture of dread was in their hearts? dread
of the big bird’s talons and dread of _Kali_ the Destroyer, to whom if
she wanted a life, that one life which was theirs, it must be yielded,
cost what it might.... But the love which was the parent and the
offspring of that terror was spilling out of their eyes as they handed
the child each to each--first Mother clasping him, and then Big-Mother,
while the white-sheeted waiting-women huddled on their haunches, cloth
drawn beseemingly over mouth, gurgled “Hi! hi!” wagging their heads,
and swaying with sympathy. It is unique, the attitude of a Hindu widow
to her baby, unique in its beauty even among baby lovers. For the child
represents more to these lonely ones than just a soft lovesome bit of
flesh and laughter, of pretty pursed lips and rounded limbs, and great
mop of soft black hair; more too than the gift of him they love. It is
now in itself their passport to heaven, their token of the visit of God
to the world: it is to be, presently, the saviour of those who have
been closest to them in life--husband, father....
“One small flicker in the lantern of the body--should any put out this
light, who will relight it? For us, not even the Creator himself, in
this life, not even the Creator....”
And the home of Love was the eyes of those two women as they passed the
boy back and forth between them; and the home of tears was their heart.
And he?--darling rogue of but a dozen or so bright fortnights of the
moon, would tyrannize in his manhood even as he tyrannized now; nor
would he hear reproach in that household of devoted women. Did not his
Father likewise?--who, dying, confessed to _Nanni-Ma_, that the sins
he had committed would need many sacrifices and much offering of the
sacred cake for expiation. And she, blaming him not, set patiently
about his bidding, sparing nothing--the one note of joy in that chaunt
of sorrow being this: “He came to his Mother, he loved her enough to
come, to trust her;” ... and, as the half-understood regret passed like
a shadow over the dying mind, she used all her art to brush it away.
“Fear not, my Son; was it not written? Is this not fruit of that past
birth of which you have no remembrance. All is illusion even sin; all
is good, yes, even sin could we know it ... and your death-ceremonies
shall be to be envied of men, buying you sinlessness through many
future births. Fear not.... And, when he is of age, the boy, he also
shall perform your ceremony ... a new birth to righteousness. Do not
fear, my Son.”
It is this memory which is in the soul of Big-Mother, as she plays with
her son’s son on the terrace in the mystic hour between the lights.
But the boy will grow, and there will be a bride to be found for him.
What great excitement this means for the Zenana, few know who have
not gone in and out among the women. There is the search among caste
folk near at hand, or at a distance. Often the Priest of the family
goes a tour to consult the horoscope of likely candidates.... There
are tragedies when Priest meets Priest and doctors the horoscope to
fit desire or sloth; but that chance must be faced by all alike.... No
need, at any rate, to fear that marriage will take the boy away, it but
brings one more daughter to Big-Mother ... a shy, small person--among
the orthodox, aged ten or thereabouts, who keeps eyes on floor demurely
the first year of marriage, in the presence of whomsoever; and
always, always runs out of the room, or hides face and head, standing
reverently in the presence of her lord. Even many years of marriage do
not relax this reserve when third persons are by. I have known mothers
of grown sons who will carry one aside to whisper what is necessary
to be said, but which cannot be said direct to their husbands in the
presence of others.... “Let the women be silent.” That a wife may not
take her husband’s name is a very general rule throughout India.
Out of all this knot of etiquette, born, it seems to me, of some
distorted view of danger to modesty, as well as of a becoming respect
and reverence, it is hard to disentangle the Indian conception of the
love of a maid for a man. But this is certain, it is unlike what is the
ideal in the West. There is worship; he is her God; he has brought God
close to her. She is created to serve him with all her powers of mind
and body, to serve and never criticize or question. The habit of her
life is expressive of the relationship. The day is planned round his
needs. She brings water to wash his feet, cooks for him, anticipates
his smallest want while he eats; if he leaves on the green plantain
leaf of orthodoxy one mouthful for the faithful slave, how happy she is
the day long!
At his hands she holds her life.... I remember a poor little woman who
had been induced by some modern-minded friend to resent the drunken
belabourings of her husband.... She ran away to the protection of
a relative, and all the Zenana held up hands of horror, not at the
beating but at her resentment of it. “What! did she not know that Hindu
wives belonged to their husbands, to be done with as they would? Would
she not give her body to be burned at his desire? Why not then give
it to be beaten at his desire?” And no reasoning would convince them
of a difference. That this conception of devotion can rise to great
heights one knows. It is not uncommon for a Hindu wife to make way of
her own accord for some younger wife, even though retaining her passion
of love for her husband, or rather perhaps, if one could conceive it,
because she has arrived at Love’s perfection.... And I have seen her
charming to the second lady: “Whom my Lord honours, shall I not love?”
But there is little _camaraderie_, except sometimes in old age, when
the grandchildren are growing up; there can be little between such
differences of levels--and very little community of interest either in
work or play--where one is educated and the other not, where one may go
about the world unveiled, and the other is hedged round with protection
of wall and curtain.
Again, as there is no choice in marriage, since the orthodox marry
in childhood, there is little chance for love except after marriage.
“We grow up to think that such an one belongs to us,” explained an
Indian girl to me of her boy husband; “we take the relationship as
you do brothers and sisters; you do not choose them; you do not,
however, therefore of necessity, resent them.” That attitude then is
the beginning. That it does lead, as a rule, to loyalty and worship we
know; that it often leads to a very high type of love, where each goes
with each, all the way, in perfect sympathy, has also been known.
And the man? “English people,” said a Hindu to me, “do not understand
our relationship to our wives; they treat their wives as we
treat--left-handed relations.” It is true, the Hindu considers any
show of feeling an insult; he almost neglects his wife in the presence
of third persons. Necessary courtesies are left to brother, father,
trusted old servant.... As they grow older she graduates in giving, he
in taking. Is he paying the highest price possible to him in--_taking_,
I wonder? Who shall say? My own impression is that he does not think
about it at all, seeing it has been the habit of generations of Indian
men. One does not think about what is natural. The pity is that the
standard of ethics is different for men and women--and this surely is
wrong in principle. “As you sow, so shall you reap,” is orthodoxy for
the man. “As you sow, so shall they reap whom you best love--your son,
your husband”--is the woman’s religion. She reaps herself, yes, but as
a secondary result, and her own benefit certainly never enters into the
calculation of the individual woman.
Do good if you can, but if you cannot, or will not, stand up to your
penalty like a man; or rather lie submissive under the full flood of
it. Count the cost, the degradation to the lowest order of creation,
the weary re-start through the gradations of re-genesis. At least there
has been no deceit. Sometimes you may buy back part of the penalty
by counter-balancing good deeds. An Eastern loves a bargain, and the
business of salvation is one great mercantile transaction; but only men
are allowed on this Rialto.
Vicarious _suffering_ with a woman for chief actor is one of the tenets
of the male.
Vicarious _pleasuring_ with a man for chief actor is the woman’s.
I said that you took your penalty, you paid your price. True, but not
always. In the highest scheme of punishment, whether for man or woman,
some one else pays. The Gods strike at the thing you love best. If the
Gods are angry with a woman they take away her husband. Is not the very
treatment of the widow in India recognition of the fact, and does she
not so accept it?
But to return to the husband’s respect for his wife, that is a good
thing to record. Say it is only policy; “where women are honoured,
there the Gods are pleased; but where they are not honoured, no sacred
rite yields reward.”... Say it is grounded in the fact of her being his
possession; possibly, but at any rate it is there. How pre-eminently
he regards her as his _property_ there is proof upon proof. He leaves
to no other hand punishment for encroachments; he shuts her away, lest
eyes of others who do not own her should see and covet--it takes more
than one generation to kill the anger in the eye of a man at a glance
of admiration from another, honest though it be; and when he dies she
remains his property still, that is the reason of perpetual widowhood;
and till it was forbidden did she not, as suttee, acknowledge that she
was his property, useless when no longer needed?
There is a temple on a City wall in a country of sand and low scrub,
gray with dust. The Temple is beautiful with its outlook on the sea of
sand, and the little earth holes of water where the women dig in the
sand. It is a Temple to a woman. She was beautiful beyond words, and
Kings sought her in marriage, and fought for her with the King to whom
she was betrothed. And at last one of the Kings slew the Betrothed, and
claimed the hand of Ranak Devi. But she, rather than betray the trust
of him whom she had never seen, but whose she was nevertheless, sought
refuge in suttee. It is her Temple which you find on the City wall, and
round about it have gathered other women--there is a very forest of
Suttee Stones. You may know them by this sign--the hand and arms of a
woman graven in the stone, always the right hand, palm outwards.
And you find here also the _pallias_ or memorial stones to warrior
Kings and to great rulers among women. For the place of memorial
stones, of the dead, of silence, is a place of glory. To it come the
bereaved, the empty-handed, to give thanks for those who have attained;
to it come the young, bending beneath blessings; death and life walk
ever hand in hand, and the white jasmine triangles of the newly-wed
make a fragrant carpet in the Temple of Memory.
But one cannot write truly of the conception of Love in any nation
without writing a book without end of the conception of each loving
soul in its loneliness and aloofness. And, when I said this to my
Wisest of the Wise, she made answer: “So it is, even so” ... and there
was such beauty in her face that I wished it had been possible to hear
her parable of Love. But silence of words was between us, naturally, on
the things we most held sacred.
And it was one who sat by who took up the thought.
“There was a King who loved his Queen with all his soul, and one day,
overcome of this love, he fell at her feet in an ecstasy, even in the
presence of the co-wives, who being jealous, said: ‘Shameless one! lift
up the hands of the King to your head.’
“And the King said: ‘Yea, my Queen, so even shouldst thou, when I have
done thee this honour.’
“But she stood erect, smiling gladly. ‘Nay,’ said she, ‘not so; for
both feet and head are my lord’s. Can I have aught that is mine?’”
XI
PORTRAITS OF SOME INDIAN WOMEN
Take first the Indian wife. Was there ever the world over a like
conception of the married state? Chief priestess of her husband, whom
to serve is her religion and her delight. One with him in the economy
of the household, certainly, but moving in a plane far below him for
all other purposes--religious, mental, social; gentle and adoring,
but incapable of participation in the larger interests of his life,
incapable of participation even in his games.
“We are richer,” “we are poorer”--that the bounds of a joint
intelligence. To please his mother, whose chief handmaiden she is in
things domestic, and to bring him a son--these her two ambitions; but
the latter chiefly, for to the mother of a son will a husband forgive
even wrangles in the house-place.
Oh, the worshipping of Gods, the consultings of oracles, the stealthy
working of charms to this end! And if the Gods prove gracious, proud
indeed is the little lady, a creature of good omen, a being to be
welcomed at feasts, to be invoked by the childless. No longer is she a
failure; even widowhood would leave her with the chastened halo of that
son who is worthy to offer sacrifices.
Such an attitude of mind may seem irrational to the alien, but it
should be remembered that the whole idea of marriage in the East
revolves simply on the conception of Life; a community of interests,
companionship--these never enter into the general calculation. Nor is
this strange when one reflects on how large a place life must fill in
the thoughts of a people believing in re-incarnation. As a life-bringer
alone has a woman her place in the scheme of Hindu philosophy. For life
and religion are inextricable in the loom of Time; and woman never did
have a Vedic value.
Look at her, then, our little Hindu type of wifehood--gentle,
submissive, a perfect house-mistress, moving softly about the women’s
domain, “the Inside.” Up with the dawn, she bathes and worships,
worships her own special godling and tends her sacred plant, then draws
from some ancestral well the water for the household needs, scorning
no domestic duty. A picture good to see is she on these occasions--her
pretty red draperies girt out of harm’s way while she heaves aloft the
shortening rope with subtle grace. Mark the poise of head, the turn of
slender wrist, as the first shafts of daylight strike brilliance from
mystic amulet or jewelled armlet. Further domesticities occupy the
day, with perchance a little gossip in the house-place ere the evening
meal brings fresh need for a skilful house-mother. She waits upon her
husband while he feeds; silent in his presence, with downcast eyes,
to look him in the face were bold indeed. Perhaps he talks to her of
village or family interests; she would not think it strange did he not.
The boy! Ah, yes, he is a tie. Encouraged by her husband, she will
quote his sayings or boast his feats and feignings. But there is no
evening home life as in the land across the seas. After feeding, the
man seeks his men companions, with their talk or their gambling. So,
watch the little lady clean her pots and hie her safe to bed--content.
I would not have you think the picture one of shadows. Often, and
especially where love has entered into the contract, ’tis a twilight
study, softly lustrous. A wife respected as competent house-wife, as
counsellor, as triumphant mother, sharing her husband’s anxieties
for the upkeep and shepherding of their little family, aware of
his ambitions, if little understanding them, and happy in their
joint observance of orthodoxy--that sheet-anchor of safety to her
conservative soul. You must be careful how you dress this lady in your
picture. Wind her garments about her in established fashion, even to
the smallest fold; make the red mark of wifehood on her ample forehead;
oil her hair and plaster it tightly down behind her ears; forget not
the ornaments for ear, for nose; and never, pray, forget that gold and
ivory bangle--“marriage lines” to her. About her toe rings you may suit
yourself. Some find them irksome, and anklets jingle pleasingly in any
case. You must make her plump, there has been no chance of exercise to
tone down outlines; uxorious, too selfless for vanity; placid, never
roused except in defence of her man or her brood, but with a reserve of
obstinacy which all the wild horses in the empire would fail to move.
She is the true guardian of the past; and uneducated, the true enemy of
Progress in India. This is our lady of the middle class. The peasant’s
wife has compensation, for often she shares her husband’s work in the
fields, and that makes common topic. Moreover, being unlettered, he has
fewer temptations than his wealthier brethren to live an individual
life.
For our studies in sad monotone we must go to the wives of one section
of the “England-returned,” as they are called.
Try to picture this lady. She can speak her own vernacular, perhaps
read it, but Western influences have passed her by. Greatly skilled is
she in things domestic. She has watched her husband with awe through
the throes of his local university, and then he sails away out of her
ken to that unknown land beyond the “black waters” of separation. Dimly
through the years does she hear of him, and great fears are at her
heart as she thinks of the women he must meet in that land of “the
unveiled”; but these are fears she may tell to none. What pre-emption
can she have in his affections? Then he comes back, wearing a bright
pink shirt, an English top-hat, and patent leather shoes. He drives
a dog-cart, and divides his time between his office and his club; he
dines at English houses--new fears here for breach-of-caste rules....
But she worships nevertheless. To buy him blessings is still left to
her, and Indian wifehood was ever a school for altruism; but in a
family group you will grant the inharmoniousness of the anachronistic.
Let it be ceded here, however, that there is another sketch possible
of that “England-returned” one. Some diversity of interests cannot be
avoided; but I have known a few little wives whose Anglicized husbands
did their best to educate them, led them painfully through the new
ideas, brought them somewhat into the “reformed” life.
To myself the attempt has often seemed pathetic, trying “to walk with
one foot,” to “clap with one hand”; but our little lady is painted
this time in a glad luminosity of gratitude that, having seen the
world, he should still deign to care.
But sometimes the woman, too, has had chance of Western education. I
have known one or two of her kind in Bengal and Madras, more in Bombay.
Perhaps she passed through the stage transitional herself once; at any
rate, she has arrived all safely, keeping her pretty national dress,
keeping also her vernacular. A great part of her day must be re-made
for the ceremonies of orthodox Hinduism which she has discarded; yet,
something solid she has in its stead, since no influence will ever make
a Hindu woman irreligious, thank God.
She will talk to you of the struggles of the great Indian reformers,
of Ram Mohan Roy, of Chaitanya. She will separate for you, with true
discrimination, the symbol from the spirit in ancient Hindu philosophy.
I have even found her reading Jowett’s Plato, Emerson, Browning.
“My husband recommended these,” she explains. Him she companions as
sufficiently as does any woman of the West her husband, walks with him,
drives with him, and is not watched with hungry, jealous eyes, as are
the newly “emancipated” women of other Indian communities, whom some of
us have seen abroad for the first time in mixed assemblages of men and
women.
Perhaps she is not as good a head domestic as her great-grandmother;
but service is merchantable, and, at any rate, she takes an intelligent
interest in the education of her children.
This much has Brahmoism (_i.e._, Hindu Theism) done at its best; and,
mistakes apart, it is not a bad “best” for a nation in transition.
The recoil from a too servile imitation of the West is bringing about a
wise admixture that may eventually prove really useful to the progress
of the nation.
Not yet have I touched upon the strictly veiled woman--the Hindu woman
in palaces or of certain parts of India, and the Mahommedan woman.
As queen, she is multiple; subtle tones of colour here, the peculiar
living tincture of great joys, great sorrows. I have known her bitter
with the consciousness of growing years and barrenness, lording her
seniority over her young and beautiful rivals--a shrew for whom surely
there is much excuse; and I have known her gentle to her co-wives as
to much-loved sisters, admiring of their graces, living with them in
kindly, humorous companionship. Nay, I have known better. I have known
her at so great a height of saintliness that, her own arms empty, she
will pray the gods to grant her rival the gift of motherhood.
Sometimes she is very young. I recall a pretty child of seventeen who
came to this particular queendom because her husband was successful in
procuring a white peacock!
“You may marry her,” had said the King, her father, to the suitor, “if
you can bring me a white peacock.”
He had not known that such things were, and when the expectant prince
produced a spotless ghost-bird, the King, for the sake of his word, had
to give him his daughter.
She was very happy in her new home; as it chanced, she was a unit,
and not one of a group. She had her own gorgeous apartments and
waiting-women. All day she turned over her pretty trinkets and
possessions, or made charms against the evil eye, or listened to
endless stories from the Court gossip; and at nightfall she played
hide-and-seek on the roof overlooking that garden where the peacock had
his place of honour.
Sometimes her husband would pay her a visit of ceremony, when she
would sit, eyes cast down, to answer his questions in monosyllables.
Sometimes she herself would visit her mother-in-law, falling at the
great lady’s feet in graceful salutation. I have known her very merry
when this formality was overpast. These visits were her only interludes
in monotony. Yet she was not unhappy. She had expected nothing else,
and more light and air fell to her lot than to that of many.
Seclusion is sometimes so rigid that it has been little better than
intermural imprisonment from one year’s end to another; no garden to
stroll in, no chance of ventilation of any kind or sort; no outside
interests or companionship. Nor would the women themselves thank you
for suggesting innovation. “Did our great-grandmothers live otherwise?”
they would ask.
The question now is, how far should the enlightened members of the
community strive to better the Purdahnashin custom? In the days when
it came to stay in India there were alleviations. You have but to look
at the architecture of the older towns, of Agra, of Jaipur, to prove
the fact. Every courtyard had its marble lattices, from behind which
the ladies of the house, securely screened, might watch the bear and
tiger-baiting, the wrestling, the ancient games. They had their private
gardens and their baths.
The long pilgrimages in palanquins made change and movement in their
lives. The system was less injurious to health than it is now. In a
town like Jaipur the whole city is one running commentary in rubric
on such alleviations. For the secluded lady there were perpetual
peep-holes on to the life of the street, with its daily pageantry and
frequent carnivals. The more modern house-holder builds blind walls in
his jealous passion of keeping.
Is it any wonder that the race grows degenerate?
Thrown back upon herself, robbed of air for mind and body, marvel is
the Purdahnashin is as nice as we know her.