brings good. When the female, destitute as she is of the blessings of
knowledge, becomes the mother of several children, she is raised to the
rank of a governess, or in other words, she becomes a _ghinni_, or head
of the family. To all intents and purposes, she seems to understand her
duties so thoroughly that almost instinctively she exercises a salutary
control over a number of young girls, newly married, corrects all
improprieties of conduct, and teaches them to cherish feelings of mutual
kindness, love and affection.
In many cases, however, it must be acknowledged, the custom of several
families--all branches of the same stem,--living together under one
roof, is a fruitful source of evil, often embittering the sweet
enjoyments of a peaceful conjugal life. Where there is no harmony among
the several female members of a family, the slightest misunderstanding
occasions bitterest quarrels, especially when there is no recognised
_ghinni_ or female head to check the same, or reconcile the parties by
matronly advice. For instance, if one son in a family be well-to-do in
the world, and another does not possess the same advantages, it is ten
to one but that the wife of the former constantly advises him to mess
separately, if not to remove to a different house, and as unequal
combination is always disadvantageous to the weaker side, the latter has
to put up with slights and indignities which are oftentimes unbearable,
and terminate in a separation either in food or domicile, or both. It is
a well established fact that a woman is the principal cause of a
disruption between brothers and other members of a family. Though she is
mild, soft, kind and flexible, yet she belies her nature when sordid
self and mean avarice exert a dominant sway over her mind. Stinted in
her culture and contracted in her views, Mammon is her god, and she
looks to the welfare of her husband and her own children as the chief
end of her existence. She is naturally loath to give a share of the
affection of her husband to a rival; she also cannot brook the idea of
frittering his earnings among his kindred. I have known of the most
affectionate and devoted of brothers not being able to see each other's
face under the all powerful influence of petticoat government. A
European becomes a housekeeper as soon as he marries. The arrangement is
an excellent one, no doubt, and as educated Hindoos are very much
disposed to imitate English manners, the practice where feasible is
gradually gaining ground, despite the prevalence of the old patriarchal
system throughout the greater portion of the country. There is a common
native saying, which runs thus: "as many brothers, so many abodes." It
is to a certain extent a striking illustration of the existing state of
things; harmony and peace can scarcely be found in a family where
brothers are swayed, as they must be, by the irresistible influence of
their wives.[105] To the credit of the patriarchal system, there still
exist in every part of the country numerous families that scout the idea
of a segregation.
Turning from the dark to the bright side of the picture, it is
gratifying to observe that of late years, attention has been directed
to, and laudable exertions are being made for, the education of Hindoo
females. Nothing can compare in importance with the steady progress of
this movement. After the movement had been begun by the Missionary
Societies, the late Hon. Mr. Drinkwater Bethune gave an important
impetus to this noble cause from the side of Government. These examples
have since been followed up by other devoted friends of native
improvement, and the Government has fully recognised the paramount
importance of the object. This combination of efforts has already
produced the most gratifying results. That there is a growing desire for
learning among the females by the study of such elementary books,
Bengallee and English, as have a tendency to improve their
understanding, is a patent fact. Not only young girls, whose age permits
them to attend schools, but grown up ladies, who are confined within the
precincts of a zenana, are alike influenced by this commendable desire.
Almost every respectable Hindoo family in Calcutta has a Christian
governess, who besides giving primary and Bible instruction, teaches all
sorts of needle-work--an art in which considerable progress has been
made within the last few years.[106] This is an indication of the growth
of a refined taste which is a great step towards the cause of national
improvement. As we have said elsewhere, instead of spending their time
in idle talk and unprofitable occupation, if not in unpleasant
dissension, they now vie with each other in producing works of art and
usefulness, and as a matter of course the annual distribution of rewards
is a great incentive to exertion. It is devoutly to be wished that this
desire for learning and taste for works of art should gradually spread
and be appreciated throughout the length and breadth of the land. In the
interior, however, the mass of the people of all ranks and of both sexes
are still as remote from the influence of this improvement as they were
centuries ago.
It is a pity that Hindoo females are withdrawn from schools the moment
they are married; this is an insuperable obstacle to the full
development of their mental powers. The progress made by some of them in
the zenana is really very creditable, and challenges the commendation of
all who have the elevation of native female character at heart. They are
not only assiduous in the cultivation of feminine graces and
accomplishments, but their superior grasp of thought and language rank
them among the literary women of their country. Some thirty years back
the Hindoo females of Bengal were immersed in ignorance; they were
represented as degraded beings incapable of improvement; not one in a
thousand could read or write; but since proper steps have been taken to
remove this national reproach, they have evinced an ardent desire to
enrich their minds by a course of study which, though not profound, is
well fitted to adorn female life. The English Church Mission, "The
Scottish Ladies' Association," a department of the Church of Scotland
Mission, the Free Church Mission, the American Mission, &c. are all
doing an incalculable amount of good by their disinterested efforts to
impart the blessings of knowledge to such zenana females as are
precluded by being married from attending schools. The complete
regeneration of India cannot be expected until the emancipation of the
females is accomplished, practically proving to the world, as it has
already done in a very limited degree, the palpable absurdity of Manu's
interdictory edict, restraining them from cultivating their intellectual
powers.
As a proof of the progress already made in the _higher_ branches of
female education, it is gratifying to state that two young ladies passed
the First Arts' Examination of the Calcutta University at the end of
last year. One of these was trained in the Bethune School, and the other
in the Free Church Normal School. This examination represents a very
considerable amount of acquirement, and is next to the B. A. Several
other female candidates also passed the Entrance or Matriculation
Examination at the same time. Similar progress has been reported from
the Madras Presidency.
Authentic history furnishes abundant evidence of the prevalence of
female education in the country to a considerable extent, until
Mahomedan oppression not only proscribed Hindoo women from pursuing a
literary career, but ultimately dragged them into a state of unhealthy
seclusion for the preservation of their honor, which they valued more
than their very life. In Rajpootana every respectable female was
instructed to read and write. Of their intellectual endowments and
knowledge of mankind, whoever has had opportunities of conversing with
them could not fail to form a favorable impression.[107]
FOOTNOTES:
[102] "The Ghikers, a Scythic race, inhabiting the banks of the Indus,
at an early period of history were given to infanticide". "It was a
custom," says Ferishta, "as soon as a female child was born, to carry
her to the market place, and there proclaim aloud, holding the child in
one hand, and a knife in the other, that any one wanting a wife might
have her; otherwise she was immolated. By this means they had more men
than women, which occasioned the custom of several husbands to one wife.
When any husband visited her, she set up a mark at the door, which being
observed by the others, they withdrew till the signal was removed."
[103] The Hindoo lawgivers, whatever their shortcomings in other
respects, showed a great insight into human nature when they looked more
to women than men for the comparative stability of their doctrines. That
the perpetual ignorance of the former promises a permanent harvest of
gain to the hierarchy, is quite evident. If a correct return were
available as to the number of pilgrims who periodically visit the
different holy places throughout the country, it would doubtless
establish the fact that upwards of two-thirds of such pilgrims are
females. If it were not for their pertinacious adherence to their
traditional faith, the Brahminical creed, at least in the great centres
of education, would have long since fallen into desuetude. The blind
unquestioning faith of the female devotees in their gods and goddesses
is the great secret of the very high estimation in which they are still
held. If we educate the females and gradually disabuse their minds of
early prejudices, we not only lay the axe at the very root of idolatry,
but pave the way for the ultimate recognition of the true religion.
[104] The late Baboo Rajbullub Roy Chowdhry, of Baripore, a very wealthy
zemindar, south of Calcutta, used, it was said, to bring up the girls of
his family, which was almost a small colony, in the art of cooking all
sorts of native dishes, from the highly spiced _polowya_ to simple
_dhall-bath_ and vegetable curry; he also taught them to bring up water
for culinary purposes from a tank inside of the house in silver _ghara_
or pots. Though he possessed the most practical of all worldly
advantages,--the power of a purse,--yet he did not hesitate to initiate
the girls in the art of cooking, that they may be fully prepared to
perform the duty in case of necessity. I can easily cite other instances
of a similar nature, but I believe they are not necessary.
[105] At the time of the _Churruck Poojah_ or swinging festival, which
takes place about the middle of April, the _Khasharees_ or Braziers of
Calcutta are accustomed to make _Sungs_ or caricature-representations of
different sorts of familiar scenes, illustrative of the prevailing
manners of the present age. In many cases they hit off the mark so
admirably that they cannot fail to make a deep impression on the popular
mind. Among other representations they once exhibited a caricature of a
son taking a wife on his shoulder, while dragging a mother by a rope
round her neck, exemplifying thereby the respective estimation in which
each is held.
[106] An annual fair or _mela_ is held near Calcutta, at which the best
specimens of needle-work executed by Hindoo females are exposed to
public view, and prizes awarded by European and Native gentlemen. Great
credit is due to Baboo Nobo Gopal Mitter, the editor of the National
Paper, for this annual exhibition. Unfortunately the _mela_ is
languishing for want of sufficient public support.
[107] "I have conversed for hours," says Colonel Tod, "with the Boondi
queen-mother on the affairs of her government and welfare of her infant
son, to whom I was left guardian by his dying father. She had adopted me
as her brother: but the conversation was always in the presence of a
third person in her confidence, and a curtain separated us. Her
sentiments shewed invariably a correct and extensive knowledge, which
was equally apparent in her letters, of which I had many. I could give
many similar instances. The history of India is filled with anecdotes of
able and valiant females. Ferishta in his history gives an animated
picture of _Durgavati_, queen of Gurrah, defending the rights of her
infant son against Akbar's ambition. Like another Boadicea, she headed
her army, and fought a desperate battle with Asoph Khan, in which she
was wounded and defeated; but scorning flight, or to survive the loss of
independence, she, like the Roman of old in a similar predicament, slew
herself on the field of battle."
The accomplished Maharatta lady--Roma Bai--who lately visited Calcutta,
affords a remarkable example of an educated Hindoo woman. She is an
excellent Sanskrit scholar, well read in _Sreemut Bhagabat_. Several
Pundits were astonished at her wonderful acquirements.
XVIII.
POLYGAMY.
In this, as well as in some other eastern countries, polygamy has from
time out of mind been in existence. That it is subversive of moral order
and of conjugal felicity, is admitted by all who have paid the slightest
degree of attention to the very many evil consequences of this abnormal
institution. It is a violation of a just and divine law, opposed to the
nurture and education of children, and inconsistent with the due
equality of the sexes. In every country where this obnoxious practice
prevails, and is dignified with the hallowed name of a social and
religious ordinance, as is done in India, woman occupies a degraded
position, and society is rude and unexpansive in its character. The most
heinous crimes are committed without remorse, and conscience is seared,
as it were, with a red-hot iron. "Nature has designed woman to be the
equal of man as a moral and intellectual being; and confined to the
exercise of her own proper duties as a wife and mother, she is placed in
a favourable position as relates to her own happiness and the happiness
of her husband." Much of the civilization of Europe is due to the high
position of the fair sex in the social scale. Their education, their
capacity for rearing their children in orderly and virtuous habits,
their elevated conceptions of a Supreme Being, their social and domestic
manners, the purity of their lives, their natural tenderness and
affection, their freedom, and the moral influence of their actions on
society, give them a rank in no way inferior to that of the other sex.
But in this country, it is painful to realise that they are not only
denied the inestimable blessings of a good education but that their
first lawgiver has condemned them to a state of abject servitude.
"Women have no business" says Manu, "with the text of the Veda, this is
the law fully settled: having, therefore, no evidence of law, and no
knowledge of expiatory texts, sinful women must be as foul as falsehood
itself; and this is a fixed rule. Through their passion for men, their
mutable temper, their want of settled affection, and their perverse
nature, (let them be guarded in this world ever so well,) they soon
become alienated from their husbands." Manu allotted to such women "a
love of their bed, of their seat, and of ornament, impure appetites,
wrath, weak flexibility, desire of mischief and bad conduct. Day and
night must women be held by their protectors in a state of dependence."
Apart from their practically servile condition, the apparent complacence
with which polygamy is tolerated, and the facility with which a
plurality of wives can be obtained, are circumstances which poison the
perennial source of conjugal felicity, reduce them to a state of moral
and intellectual degradation, and sap the very foundation of virtue. "A
barren wife," says Manu, "may be superseded by another in the eighth
year; she whose children are all dead, in the tenth; she who brings
forth only daughters, in the eleventh year; she who speaks unkindly,
without delay." Bullal Sen, who, if I mistake not, had first established
the system of _Koolinism_ in Bengal, and prescribed certain rules in
favor of polygamy, was singularly deficient in foresight and wisdom when
he entirely overlooked the evil consequences inseparable from this
monstrous matrimonial arrangement, so pregnant with mischief in whatever
aspect we view it. Any artificial institution which is subversive of
divine law will, in the main, prove highly unfavourable to the best
interests of society. The marriage of a man with but one wife is an
arrangement which should never be departed from. To dispose of the
ministering angels of our existence, without the slightest regard to
their future happiness, and yoke them to an unprincipled libertine, or
a Koolin perhaps on the verge of his grave, is a system alike
destructive of all social, benevolent and humane feelings. A Koolin has
no regard, much less sympathy, for any one of his numerous wives, on the
contrary he looks to them for gain and other worldly advantages. It is a
notorious fact that Koolin wives after their marriage almost invariably
live with their parents, thus virtually closing all avenues to the
growth of affection between the husband and wife. The one is as
estranged from the other as if there had been no bond of union between
them. As the temptations to vicious indulgences are so very powerful and
numerous in this wicked world of ours, the unscrupulous Koolin females
of the sacerdotal class often sacrifice chastity at the altar of
sensuality. The perpetration of the most horrible crimes is the
necessary effect. The fault does not rest so much with the poor
unfortunate females as with the diabolical system which openly tolerates
and religiously upholds polygamy. That it is an unnatural state, even
the most thoughtless will readily admit. In every case it is the source
of perpetual disputes and misery. Domestic happiness can have no place
in a family in which more than one wife lives. I have known many a
person who under the impulse of passion had entered into this unnatural
state deplore it as the greatest of all domestic afflictions. Even
separate cook rooms, separate apartments, and separate _mehals_, and
dining and sleeping alternately with two wives with the greatest
punctuality, and giving the same set of ornaments to both, were not
enough to ensure harmony, peace and tranquillity. Indeed it has become a
proverb among the Hindoos, that "one wife would rather go with her
husband to the gloomy regions of _yama_ (Pluto) than see him sit with
the other." As has already been described, a tender girl of five years
of age is, as her _first_ instruction before emerging from her nursery,
initiated into the _Brata_ or religious vow of _Sayjooty_, the primary
object of which is the ruin and destruction of a _Sateen_ or rival wife.
The germs or jealousy against, and contempt for, a rival being thus sown
so early, they take deep root and expand in time so as to become
absolutely ineradicable.
When the presence of two wives in the same house is attended with so
much disquietude, the evil arising from the practices of professional
Koolins is much greater. They are married to a number of females whose
prospect of connubial bliss is as remote as the poles are asunder.
Instead of true love and genuine attachment, the legitimate conditions
of matrimony, the natural apathy of the husband is often requited by the
infidelity of his numerous wives; nor can it be otherwise, the visits of
the husband being, like those of a meteor, few and far between. Being
destitute of the finer susceptibilities of human nature, and looking
upon matrimony as a matter of traffic, he regards his wives as so many
automata whose happiness is not at all identified with his own.
Influenced by a sordid love of gain, bred and brought up in the lap of
ignorance and laziness, and pampered by effeminate habits, he leads a
profligate life typical of utter demoralisation. He cares as little for
the chastity of his wives as a child does for the nicety of his
playthings. By rank, profession and habit he is a debauchee. His sense
of female honor is totally blunted. The thought of nurturing and
educating his numerous children never enters into his mind. He knows not
how many sons and daughters he has, whether legitimate or illegitimate;
he is not capable of recognising them, simply because he has seldom or
never seen their faces. If he keep a register of the number of his
wives, he keeps no record of the number of his children. When he wants
money, he pounces on such a father-in-law as can satisfy him. If he keep
one wife at home, it is not from warmth of affection that he does so,
but merely for his own convenience and comfort; she is made to discharge
all the menial offices of a domestic maid-servant. Though never placed
in affluent circumstances, yet he is the lord of thirty, forty or fifty
women. It has been very aptly remarked by an eminent writer who had paid
much attention to the manners and customs of the Hindoos,--that "amongst
the Turks, seraglios are confined to men of wealth, but here, a Hindoo
Brahmin, possessing only a shred of cloth and a piece of thread,
(_poita_) keeps more than a hundred mistresses." Indeed such a system of
monstrous polygamy is without a parallel in the history of human
depravity. Prostitution, adultery, and the horrible crime of the
destruction of the foetus in the womb by means of deleterious drugs
administered by old women, are the inevitable consequences of this
unnatural state of things. It is an undeniable fact that the daughters
of Koolin Brahmins, abandoned by their unprincipled husbands, are often
led into the forbidden paths of life, partly through the impulse of
passion amidst the seductions of a wicked world, and partly through
their exceedingly miserable circumstances. The houses of ill fame in
Calcutta and other large towns are filled with women of this infamous
character, and the inhuman practice of _patefalano_ prevails to an
alarming extent, notwithstanding the increased vigilance of the police.
Some fifty years ago a number of respectable Hindoos felt so disgusted
at the mischievous tendency of the Koolin system of marriage that they
were on the eve of memorialising the Government to put down the practice
by a legislative enactment, such as had been done in the prohibition of
_sati_ or female immolation, but they were assured that the authorities
would not interfere in the domestic and social usages of the people.
It is gratifying to observe, however, that the growth of intelligence
and the march of intellect has of late years greatly counteracted the
influence of this monstrous evil. If the Rulers will not attempt to
abolish a social system opposed to the feelings of natural affection by
the denunciation of the severest temporal penalties, the good sense of
the people who are victimised by it must be appealed to for its total
suppression.
The following extract from Mr. Ward's excellent work on the Hindoos will
give the reader an idea of the fearful extent to which Koolinism
prevailed in Bengal some fifty or sixty years back, when English
education could scarcely be said to have commenced the work of
reformation or rather disintegration.