The Rest Of The Hindus Must
Remain In Matrimony Till The Age Of Forty; After Which They Earn
The Right To Leave The World, And To Seek Salvation, Leading An
Ascetic Life In Some Jungle.
If a member of some Hindu family
happens to be afflicted from birth with some organic defect, this
will
Not be an impediment to his marrying, on the condition that
his wife should be also a cripple, if she belongs to the same caste.
The defects of husband and wife must be different: if he is blind,
she must be hump-backed or lame, and vice versa. But if the young
man in question is prejudiced, and wants a healthy wife, he must
condescend to make a mesalliance; he must stoop to choose a wife
in a caste that is exactly one degree lower than his own. But in
this case his kinsmen and associates will not acknowledge her;
the parvenue will not be received on any conditions whatever.
Besides, all these exceptional instances depend entirely on the
family Guru - on the priest who is inspired by the gods.
All the above holds good as far as the men are concerned; but
with the women it is quite different.
Only the nautches - dancing girls consecrated to gods, and living
in temples - can be said to be free and happy. Their occupation
is hereditary, but they are vestals and daughters of vestals,
however strange this may sound to a European ear. But the notions
of the Hindus, especially on questions of morality, are quite
independent, and even anti-Western, if I may use this expression.
No one is more severe and exacting in the questions of feminine
honor and chastity; but the Brahmans proved to be more cunning
than even the Roman augurs. Rhea Sylvia, for instance, the mother
of Romulus and Remus, was buried alive by the ancient Romans, in
spite of the god Mars taking an active part in her faux pas. Numa
and Tiberius took exceedingly good care that the good morals of
their priestesses should not become merely nominal. But the vestals
on the banks of the Ganges and the Indus understand the question
differently from those on the banks of the Tiber. The intimacy
of the nautch-girls with the gods, which is generally accepted,
cleanses them from every sin and makes them in every one's eyes
irreproachable and infallible. A nautcha cannot sin, in spite of
the crowd of the "celestial musicians" who swarm in every pagoda,
in the form of baby-vestals and their little brothers. No virtuous
Roman matron was ever so respected as the pretty little nautcha.
This great reverence for the happy "brides of the gods" is especially
striking in the purely native towns of Central India, where the
population has preserved intact their blind faith in the Brahmans.
Every nautcha can read, and receives the highest Hindu education.
They all read and write in Sanskrit, and study the best literature
of ancient India, and her six chief philosophies, but especially
music, singing and dancing. Besides these "godborn" priestesses
of the pagodas, there are also public nautches, who, like the
Egyptian almeas, are within the reach of ordinary mortals, not
only of gods; they also are in most cases women of a certain culture.
But the fate of an honest woman of Hindostan is quite different;
and a bitter and incredibly unjust fate it is. The life of a
thoroughly good woman, especially if she happens to possess warm
faith and unshaken piety, is simply a long chain of fatal misfortunes.
And the higher her family and social position, the more wretched is
her life. Married women are so afraid of resembling the professional
dancing girls, that they cannot be persuaded to learn anything the
latter are taught. If a Brahman woman is rich her life is spent
in demoralizing idleness; if she is poor, so much the worse, her
earthly existence is concentrated in monotonous performances of
mechanical rites. There is no past, and no future for her; only
a tedious present, from which there is no possible escape. And
this only if everything be well, if her family be not visited by
sad losses. Needless to say that, amongst Brahman women, marriage
is not a question of free choice, and still less of affection.
Her choice of a husband is restricted by the caste to which her
father and mother happen to belong; and so, to find a suitable
match for a girl is a matter of great difficulty, as well as of
great expense. In India, the high-caste woman is not bought, but
she has to buy the right to get married. Accordingly, the birth
of a girl is not a joy, but a sorrow, especially if her parents
are not rich. She must be married not later than when she is
seven or eight; a little girl of ten is an old maid in India,
she is a discredit to her parents and is the miser-able butt of
all her more fortunate contemporaries.
One of the few noble achievements of Englishmen in India which
have succeeded is the decrease of infanticide, which some time
ago was a daily practice, and still is not quite got rid of. Little
girls were killed by their parents everywhere in India; but this
dreadful custom was especially common amongst the tribes of Jadej,
once so powerful in Sindh, and now reduced to petty brigandage.
Probably these tribes were the first to spread this heartless practice.
Obligatory marriage for little girls is a comparatively recent
invention, and it alone is responsible for the parents' decision
rather to see them dead than unmarried. The ancient Aryans knew
nothing of it. Even the ancient Brahmanical literature shows that,
amongst the pure Aryans, woman enjoyed the same privileges as man.
Her voice was listened to by the statesmen; she was free either
to choose a husband, or to remain single. Many a woman's name
plays an important part in the chronicles of the ancient Aryan land;
many women have come down to posterity as eminent poets, astronomers,
philosophers, and even sages and lawyers.
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