Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1881 — Girl Life in India. [ARTICLE]

Girl Life in India.

On the day of her marriage she is put into a palanquin shut up tight, and carried to her husband’s house.’ Hitherto she had been the spoilt pet of her mother; now she is to be the little slave of her mother-in-law, upon whom she is to wait, whose commands she is implicitly to obey, and who teaches her what she is to do to r lease her husband; what dishes he ikes best and how to cook them. If the mother-in-law is kind she will let the girl go home occasionally to visit her mother.

Of her husband she sees little or nothing. She is of no more account to him than a little cat or dog would be. There is seldom or never any love between them, and no matter how cruelly she may be treated, she can never complain to her husband of anything his mother may do, for he would never take his wife’s part. Her husband sends to her daily the portion of food that is to be cooked for her, himself and the children. When it Is prepared she places it all on one large brass platter, and it is sent into the husband’s room. He eats what hp wishes, and then the Blatter is sent hack; with what is left, for her and the children. They sit together on the ground and eat the remainder, having neither knives, forks nor spoons. While she is young she is never allowed to go anywhere. When she becomes very old, if she makes a vow to go on a pilgrimage to some heathen temple, she is permitted to go to otter a sacrifice either for herself or for others, but this is only occasionally done; very, very few ever undertake it. She always has her Takoors, or household gods, on a shelf in the house, most frequently over her«own bed, and to them she pays her daily devotions, offering them rice and decorating them with flowers ; and so at length she draws near the hour of death, and when it is thought her end is just approaching, is carried down to the banks of the Ganges, there to breathe her last in. view of that holy stream whose waters are supposed to be efficacious in cleansing away sin. As soon as the spirit has departed the remains are taken to the Burning Ghat (the place for burning the dead bbdles) and aid upon a pile of wood. In a few hours nothing remains but a little heap of ashes. This is then taken up and cast into the river Ganges. Such is the life and death of the happiest, the most favored, amongst th«*se Bengali women. The little girls are married even as young as three years of age, and should the boy to whom such a child is married die the next day she is called a widow, and is from henceforth doomed to perpetual widowhood ; she can never marry again. As a widow she must never wear any jewelry, never dress her hair, never sleep on a bed, nothing but a piece of matting spread on the liara brick floor, and sometimes, in fact, noteven thst between her ana the cold bricks,, and no matter hOw cold the nights may be. she must have no Other covering than the thin garment she lias worn in the day. She must eat but one meal of food a day, and that of the coarsest kind, and once in two w. eks she must fa£t for twenty-four hours. Then notia bit of food, not a drop of water or medicine must pass her lips, not even if she were dying. She must never sit down or speak in the presence of. her mother-in-law, or either' of her sisters-in-law, unless .they comma d. her to do so. Her food must be cooked and eaten apart from other women's.. She is a disgraced, a degraded wo-' man. She may never even look on at any of the marriag ceremonies or festivals. It would be au evil omen for her to do so. She may have been a high caste Brahmanic woman, but an' iter becoming a widow, any, eveii the. lowest servant, may order her'to do - what tliey do not like to do. No woman in the house must ever speak ‘one of love or pity to her, tor It is supjfosed that if a woman shows the slightest commiseration to a widow she will immediately become one hererff. I saw an account a short time ago in an English paper that they have been trying to take the census of the population lately In India, and, as far as they had gone, they found that .there were eightv thousand widows Lundersix years dr age. ‘Can you imfagine the amount oftsuffering that little sentence tells of and foretells?

Some amongst the educated men of India are desirous to break the chains that still hold the women in slavery. Others still desire to keep them down in abject submission. A native gentleman, a lawyer, only a short rime ago pleaded in the English court of jutitiee in Calcutta for the “abject dependence of women,” quoting the ‘‘statutes of Menu,” one of the most ancient of their holy books. He said: “Menu tells us tMt ip childhood a female iqqst be dependent on her soIther; iq youth on her husbands her lord being dead, on her sons." He also stated that for a woman te-aspire to the exercise of her free win would be something shocking to the feelings of the whole Hindoo community! Menu also writes:. “By a girl or a woman advanced in years, nothing' must be done even tn her own dwell-ing-place according to her own pleasure.’’. Menu classes her with the etupid, the dumb, the blind and the deif. She may be corrected by her Iqrd, to whom her Rind, speech and bo<]y qre sq be kepf fi sqtle&ion by means of a rope of cane. This is the position of her who should be his companion, his helpmeet and friend. So is it any wonder that the race has remained so degraded for .ages?— Congreqational-