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PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE FOR 
 
 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE 
 
 PAPER READ BY 
 
 COLONEL ^TEMPLE, C.I.E. 
 
 on 
 
 The Women of India 
 
 at the 
 
 ROYAL PALACE HOTEL, KENSINGTON 
 
 on 
 
 March 8th, 1899 
 
PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE FOR 
 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE 
 
 
 PAPER READ BY 
 
 COLONEL TEMPLE, C.I.E. 
 
 iv 
 on 
 
 The Women of India 
 
 at the 
 
 ROYAL PALACE HOTEL, KENSINGTON 
 
 on 
 
 March 8th, 1899 
 
HQ ll H 
 
(IBomen oi Ittbia. 
 
 WITH your kind permission I must commence my task this 
 evening with some preliminary information. There are, as you 
 are so often glibly informed, some 300,000,000 people in India, 
 and you may infer from such a statement, though this fact is not 
 usually brought prominently to your notice, that so vast a 
 population as this is most heterogeneous in its composition. 
 It is to this heterogeneousness that I have to draw your special 
 attention, because the chief characteristic of Indian domestic 
 polity is extreme subdivision. The tendency among all classes 
 of the natives of India is towards the social isolation of groups 
 with contracted interests, and the consequent accentuation of 
 minute differences in habits of life. The results of this are 
 what is generally known as "caste," and "caste" is best 
 denned as eating, drinking and smoking together, and inter- 
 marrying. 
 
 Now, it is caste that underlies and controls all social matters 
 that are peculiarly Indian. At first sight, therefore, in such 
 circumstances, there can be no such thing as a common method 
 of life among the women of a population, which is an ill-assorted 
 compost of wild and savage tribes of diverse origin, of 
 Brahmans and orthodox Hindus, of heterodox Hindus and non- 
 Brahmanists by conviction and birth, of Buddhists and Jains 
 and Parsis, of Muhammadans and Jews and Christians of very 
 long standing, of Aryan and Dravidian races, of aboriginal 
 clans of Aryan and non-Aryan descent, of highly cultivated 
 communities and completely ignorant tribes, of whole peoples 
 within and without the pale of Oriental civilisation. And thus 
 it might be fairly argued that it is quite impossible to deal 
 
 M43612 
 
Varied a subject as that involved in a general 
 view of womankind and her ways in India within the limits of 
 a lecture. But the real fact is not quite so, because there 
 exists a standard of life which is Indian, and to which all the 
 varieties of the natives are drawn. Just as there is a life which 
 is Oriental in the ordinary restricted sense of that term, habits 
 that are Indo-Chinese and manners that are European. No 
 one supposes that Norwegian and Italian ladies live exactly in 
 the same way, or that English and Spanish women adopt pre- 
 cisely the same mode of life ; but that there is a general line of 
 conduct which is common to all European countries is apparent 
 to everyone who observes mankind. So it is in India. The- 
 overshadowing influence to which every true native of the great 
 peninsula unwittingly submits is that wielded by the modern 
 Brahmans through their staunch henchmen, the high-caste 
 Hindus. In describing, therefore, in very general terms the 
 aims and habits of an ordinary Brahmani, one can give a fair 
 notion of a life to which the average Indian woman, however 
 antagonistic her creed and race, is unconsciously led on by 
 instinct, as it were, to imitate, and which is her invariable 
 model. 
 
 Now I say this, and I take the Brahmani as my model, of 
 set purpose, because of the great and by no means decreasing 
 hold that Brahmanism, as a living and active faith, has on the 
 people of India, and because to the populace it_is a religion of 
 customs and ceremonies, rather than of philosophy and creed. 
 It enormously, if not mainly, influences the habits of daily life, 
 and some expression of its action and its commanding power 
 over the people is germane to my subject. Brahmanism is not 
 a proselytising, in the sense of being a missionary, religion, and 
 its fundamental theory it is a theory and not a practice be it 
 remembered is, to parody a well-known saying, that the Hindu 
 is born, not made. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that 
 it manages to make more converts by mere assimilation than 
 can any other religion in India by direct missionary effort. 
 
Indeed, this absorption into Brahmamsm is becoming, under 
 the pax Britannica, day by day, a more important feature in 
 Indian social economy. As surely as the English bring fresh 
 uncultured tribes under their civilising influence, so surely do 
 they add to the number of the Hindus ; as surely as the iron 
 hand of Anglo-Indian law, by refusing to recognise any difference 
 between man and man, causes the upward rise in the social 
 scale of those that labour to good purpose, so surely is the 
 cause of Brahmanic orthodoxy advanced and its influence 
 widened. I have watched the first process myself in the case 
 of the recruits to our little army of Gurkhas. The wild moun- 
 tain boy, on joining his regiment, is taught not only his drill, 
 but also the Hindustani language as understood in military 
 circles, and with it his religion, i.e., a smattering of current 
 Hinduism. The second can be seen in progress any day all over 
 India, by anyone who will take the trouble to observe the career 
 of a successful handicraftsman or small trader. At first an 
 " out-caste," dealing in matters of religion with his tribal sooth- 
 sayer only ; as he gathers money he sets up a Brahman 
 priest, and minds the orthodox gods, and at last, when respect- 
 able and wealthy, he developes into a full-blown Hindu. And 
 then, since in all Hinduism ceremonial orthodoxy is synonymous 
 with social respectability, he adopts Hindu manners to the full ; 
 isolates his women, prohibits the remarriage of widows, marries 
 off his infant children in the proper quarters, and practises the 
 thousand and one customs peculiar to his adopted religion. 
 
 Of course, in order to be able to thus attract to itself so many 
 antagonistic principles of custom and belief, the modern Brah- 
 manism can have no hard and fast creed. It has, in fact, no 
 creed at all, properly so called. It consists rather of a leading 
 principle, viz., to gather together whatever items of belief may 
 come to hand, in order to developethem in a certain definite 
 direction under the control of its own priests and for their bene- 
 fit ; and while the process of development is going on it 
 naturally engrafts its own customs on to those it already finds 
 
in existence. Herein lies its wonderful vitality and strength, 
 its capacity for digesting anything that gets into its maw, and 
 its power of resisting internal disruption. The^ Apparently 
 elastic network of caste and family customs that it invariably 
 twines round its victims is marvellously cruel, and so unendurable 
 that revolt after revolt has been made against it ; but the re- 
 sult so far has been only to loosen the meshes for a time. 
 Slowly and surely the intangible threads have tightened again, 
 as by degrees the very customs created by the schismatics are 
 adopted by the priests, and made to conform to the general 
 theory, all the harder to resist because it is never formulated. 
 The history of every sect that has broken off from Brahmanism, 
 and of these there have been very many, some of which have 
 been followed by many millions, is that of gradual absorption 
 back into the main faith, through the control that the Brahman 
 priests have always succeeded in obtaining over the very 
 domestic ceremonies, from which the schisms have been chiefly 
 created to exclude them. Even though the Parsis, Jews and 
 Christians have greater powers of resistance than sects who 
 base their philosophy and cosmogony on Hinduism itself can 
 have, yet it would not be difficult to show how greatly the all- 
 pervading faith of Hindustan has influenced them too. Many 
 a missionary could tell a tale of more or less ineffectual battle 
 with his own following against the notion of the existence of a 
 Christian " caste." In the case of the Muhammadans the 
 resistance has been but feeble. The bulk of them, being descen- 
 dants of tribes converted wholesale in various ways to Islam in 
 days gone by, are still Hindus in many matters of thought and 
 custom. In fact, if we extract the profession of faith and a few 
 formulae, it is not at all easy to say, as regards them, where 
 Islam begins and Hinduism ends. In any case, Brahmanism 
 overshadows their lives. 
 
 Of course, I am not now speaking of the tenets deliberately held 
 by the authorised exponents of the several rival religions, but of 
 the religious ideas of the unintelligent masses, which are to my 
 
mind and here I find myself in accord with the best credited 
 observers of Indian life the outcome of an unthinking reverence 
 for things usually held to be holy, i.e., hagiolatry, whatever be 
 the outward expression of faith. Of such a state of things 
 Brahmanism is pre-eminently adapted to take full advantage ; 
 for it presents no bold front to prejudices, and bends no man to- 
 its will, but rather puts forth its tender tentacles, gradually 
 draws to itself, and quietly absorbs all things. 
 
 Having thus explained to you in the very barest of outlines 
 what caste and Brahmanism mean, what their action is, and to 
 what extent they influence the life of the people, I would ask 
 permission, before proceeding further, to set aside any misap- 
 prehension that the opening sentences of this address may have 
 caused in your minds, by stating clearly that I would not have 
 it inferred from what has been said, that I hold all the women 
 of India to lead practically identical lives ; that the secluded 
 banker's daughter has much in common with the scavenger's 
 wife, free to go where she pleases and to speak to whom she 
 will ; or that the worthy spouse of the village Maulavi would 
 not at once flare up and feel highly insulted if told that her life 
 was conducted on much the same lines as that of the equally 
 worthy Panditani over the way. It would be more than 
 erroneous, moreover, to state that a woman of the Himalayas 
 has exactly the same views of propriety as she of Bombay, or 
 that the grimy and unwashed Panjabi has manners similar to 
 the oiled and carefully bathed inhabitant of Madras. All I 
 wish to assert is that a special way of living underlies all those 
 differences which appear to be so great to the casual observer,, 
 and that beneath the chance-tossed waves on the surface there 
 lie hidden depths of female life which are distinctly Indian, and 
 which can be best sounded by a study of the high-caste Hindu 
 woman. The Brahmani is, as it were, the fashionable beauty, 
 whom all of her sex in India follow, with the varying 
 success with which maids copy their mistresses all over the 
 world. 
 
8 
 
 Now I trust that it has been made clear to you that I cannot 
 on the present occasion enter__inlo the details of thfi_life__of 
 orthodox Hindu women. Nothing more, indeed, can be done 
 now fhan to indicate its merest outlines in order to show of what 
 it mainly consists, whither it tends, and how it affects those that 
 lead it. Also, I would like to ask your leave to say that in 
 endeavouring to go through the task I have been invited to 
 undertake to-night, I am bound to plead, first that as a man, 
 and secondly, that as an Englishman, I cannot do more than 
 speak under correction. Hindu exclusiveness, as you all know, 
 absolutely prohibits outsiders from personally observing what I 
 am about to describe, and all that can be possibly done by per- 
 sons situated as 1 am, is to procure our facts as nearly at first- 
 hand as practicable. On this point I can only say that I have, 
 during a continuous and varied study of the natives of India on 
 the spot for nearly thirty years, had unusual opportunities of 
 being in the way of obtaining accurate information about their 
 lives from unquestionable sources, and have drawn for my 
 present purposes solely upon matters which have come to me 
 as the^rjThearetjjf llie^tale. Because I am, on this account, 
 quite sure that all the~Tacts" thus learnt are straight from the. 
 mouths of trustworthy natives of India. Further, at the risk 
 of being accused of making too long a preface, I must also say 
 that there are several ways in which the female life in India 
 can be viewed. For instance, it can be looked at from a high 
 moral standpoint of the European sort, or an instructive lesson 
 in religion, as understood by us, might be taught from it, with 
 our dusky Indian sisters as the " dreadful examples." Any- 
 thing of this kind is, however, far from my present purpose. 
 My aim is rather to try and grasp, without unduly criticising it, 
 what that life must really be, and in roughly describing it, to 
 bring it home to your minds. And though I shall touch upon 
 matters and notice conditions which are very foreign, and even 
 shocking to our ideas, I shall not mention them for any other 
 reason than that they are facts which cannot be blinked. With 
 
this last item of preliminary information I will pass on to the 
 subject proper of this evening's discourse. 
 
 Domestic manners are everywhere composed of the same 
 elements, if we eliminate from our daily lives the occurrences 
 dependent on chance and those circumstances which, even if 
 recurrent, are in reality occasional. All the world, in fact, sings 
 the same tune, though each community has its own pet varia- 
 tion. Every family is bound to evolve a modus vivendi. It can- 
 not help making rules of conduct for eating and drinking and 
 sleeping, for work and intercourse and recreation, as these are 
 matters that, happen what may, must be attended to every day 
 of our lives. Accordingly, wherever we go, we find regulations 
 upon all these things, and the point we have now to consider is, 
 what the ideas of household economy are, which dominate in a 
 general way the domestic laws of the most orthodox of the 
 Hindus, and through them the whole of the Indian com- 
 munities, and then how they affect the women subjected to 
 them. 
 
 An orthodox Indian woman's life in its ordinary course is 
 divided into two clearly denned parts, which are quite distinct, 
 though separated from each other only by the fateful day on 
 which she first goes to take up her abode within her father-in- 
 law's family. Note that it is not called in the Indian languages 
 her husband's family, for that, under the Indian family system, 
 it can seldom be in the case of a bride. Childhood rather than 
 girlhood is the heyday of the Indian woman. Free to play as 
 she pleases, with plenty of companions, for children galore can 
 hardly ever be wanting in a family which all live together, from 
 oldest to youngest ; free to run in and out of the houses of 
 friends, never bothered to learn anything except what she can 
 pick up from the women about her, never worried with caste 
 restrictions, never asked to do more in the way of labour than 
 to help in the housework, petted by her parents, spoilt by her 
 aunts and uncles, and beloved by her brothers, an Indian girl- 
 child is indeed happy as children count happiness. And then 
 
IO 
 
 suddenly the curtain falls. At about ten years of age earlier 
 in some parts and later in others our spoilt child is old enough 
 to work in earnest, and so she is packed off, sorely against her 
 will, to join her husband's family, entering it, not as our brides, 
 enter their future homes, at the head of the female community,. 
 but at the bottom. Child though she still is, her childhood is. 
 now for ever past, and she is turned into a young woman, only 
 too often into by no means a happy one. 
 
 At this stage it is necessary to consider two matters, so far as. 
 they affect an Indian bride, viz., the practice of infant marriage, 
 and what is known as the joint-family. I need hardly state that 
 the so-called "marriage" of infants is practised among all 
 classes in every part of India, though of course there are many 
 exceptions to the rule. The term " marriage," as applied to- 
 this ceremony by us, is, however, rather misleading. It is in 
 reality an irrevocable betrothal a bargain not between the 
 infants who are " married," but between those who control 
 them, being often nothing else than a purely commercial con- 
 tract. It arises out of the theory that a woman is for life under 
 tutelage, and her " marriage " is, therefore, merely a transfer of 
 the right over her to another party, a transfer naturally very 
 frequently made in return for a pecuniary consideration. After 
 this marriage or betrothal, the girl usually remains with her 
 parents, in trust for those to whom she is to be transferred, 
 until the home-coming or going to her husband's house, which 
 may be looked upon as the real marriage, as we Europeans use 
 the word. Until the second ceremony takes place the child- 
 wife is still a child to all intents and purposes, and treated as 
 such, and it is only after it that she in any sense enters on the 
 duties of adult female life. The family she joins is exactly like 
 that she has left, only it is that of another ; to her a vast differ- 
 ence, and one which she never forgets indeed, it is not infre- 
 quently made painfully apparent to her at every step. What I 
 may call the standard Indian" joint-family is one composed of the 
 paterfamilias, all his sons and brothers, and various extraneous. 
 
II 
 
 relatives, such as nephews, cousins, and wife's kindred, for the 
 male part ; and all their wives, in addition to his own wife and 
 daughters, together with a sprinkling of the family widows, for 
 the female part. In this patriarchy there are grades upon 
 grades, both male and female, dependent chiefly upon age and 
 distance by blood from the head of the family; and as every- 
 body is married in India as soon as the time for it comes, the 
 chances are that the last-made bride is, in the nature of things, 
 in the very lowest place. 
 
 In the average Indian family the strictest domestic economy 
 is the rule of life, and the household work is done by the women 
 of the household, not, as with us, by paid servants. Servants 
 there are, of course, in all Indian families, but they are, as a 
 rule, on a totally different footing to the European domestic, 
 being for the most part independent persons with a clientele, for 
 whom they perform certain customary services for a customary 
 wage. The distribution of the daily work, down to that of the 
 most menial kind, lies with the materfamilias, who may be best 
 described as the oldest woman in the family proper under cover- 
 ture, for widows can have no authority. The cooking, as the 
 work of honour, she keeps to herself, but the house-cleaning, 
 the washing, the care of the children, the drawing of the water, 
 the making of the beds, and so on, is done by the less dignified 
 members of the household, as she directs ; and whatever is 
 most menial, most disagreeable and the hardest work, is thrust 
 upon the bride. She is the servant of the very servants, and 
 must obey everybody. It is hardly, therefore, to be wondered 
 at that, after her previous training, it is by no means an un- 
 common occurrence that she has to be forcibly broken into her 
 new way of life, that she is for ever sighing after the flesh-pots 
 of her father's house, that there are various " customs " which 
 enable her to revisit it at stated times after the marriage, and 
 that the law is often invoked to oblige brides to return to their 
 husband's families after the customary term of such visits has 
 expired. 
 
12 
 
 Not only is our bride thus turned into a drudge, often un- 
 mercifully overworked, but from the day she gives up her 
 childhood to the day of her deathit may be for sixty years 
 she is secluded, and sees nothing of the world outside the walls 
 of the family enclosure. It should always, therefore, be borne 
 in mind when trying to realise Indian female life, what a very 
 important thing the domestic economy is to a woman; how 
 largely the petty affairs of the household loom upon her horizon. 
 Her happiness or misery indeed entirely depend on the manner 
 in which the affairs of the family are conducted. Now, con 
 sidering that the female mind has for centuries been mainly 
 directed to this all-important matter, it is not astonishing to 
 find that such questions as the proper method of eating and 
 drinking, and of domestic propriety generally the intercourse, 
 that is, which is permissible and right between the various 
 members of the household, male and female have long been 
 regulated with the utmost minuteness. To us who roam the 
 world at will, and whose interests are often fixed far more out- 
 side than inside our homes, it may seem remarkable that such 
 infinitesimal restrictions and numberless customs as are found 
 in full swing in an orthodox Hindu household should be re- 
 membered and carried out with the exactitude demanded of the 
 womenkind ; but if we consider that these make up their whole 
 life, and that they are called upon to pay attention to nothing 
 else, their capacity for recollecting when to veil and unveil, 
 whom to address and avoid, when they must run away and 
 when they may speak, ceases to be extraordinary. And re- 
 garding these customs of social propriety, I must say that the 
 more one studies them the more one is impressed with their per- 
 verted ingenuity. They seem purposely invented to make the 
 unfortunate victim of them as uncomfortable as possible. The 
 Indian woman, isolated from the outer world by custom, is 
 again by custom isolated as far as practicable from all the male 
 members of. that little inner world to which she is confined. 
 Free intercourse, even with her own husband, is not permitted 
 
13 
 
 her while yet her youthful, capabilities for joyousness exist. 
 No wonder then that absence of jollity is a characteristic of 
 the Indians generally, for the happy laughter of a home is 
 denied them by custom in the most persistent manner. I can- 
 not go into all, or nearly all, the customs by which the orthodox 
 Brahmanists have succeeded in rendering themselves a sombre 
 people incapable of seeing a good-natured joke, and whose 
 young men and maidens never laugh for laughter's sake. A 
 few will suffice to bring home to you how completely the women 
 are in sympathies and life separated from the men, and how the 
 members of the sexes again are far from mixing freely with each 
 other. Very small is the world within the four walls of an 
 Indian house,:and it seems really pitiable to us to note how 
 greatly it is divided within itself. 
 
 Every person belonging to the European races, an English- 
 man especially, well knows how much common meals tend to 
 social sympathy ; how powerful a factor they are in promoting 
 pleasurable family existence, and in educating the young to 
 good manners. There is nothing of this sort in Indian upper 
 class society. There the men and women dine strictly apart, 
 the women greatly on the leavings of the men, and that, too, in 
 messes of degree, very like those in a royal naval ship. Pater- 
 familias dines by himself, then the other men together in groups, 
 according to standing, waited on by the women under fixed 
 rules j and lastly the women, when the men have done, our 
 poor young bride coming last of all, obliged often to be content, 
 I need hardly tell you, with the roughest of the fare. In the 
 British Navy separate dining has been adopted for undeniable 
 reasons of discipline involving the very life of every one at sea ; 
 in an Indian family it is the rule of life to which all are 
 subjected alike. 
 
 Such, then, is one of those customs which go to make an 
 Indian woman's existence less happy than it might be. Let me 
 tell you another, this time as to family intercourse. The rule 
 may be roughly stated thus. No imported woman may have 
 
any relations with those males who are her seniors. Every 
 bride is such an imported woman, and all the household which 
 she enters, who are the seniors of her husband, are her seniors. 
 This at first generally includes nearly the whole family, and 
 must necessarily for a long while include the major part of it. 
 In all her life she never speaks to her husband's father, uncles, 
 or elder brothers, though dwelling under the same roof, or, to 
 speak more correctly, within the same enclosure, for an Indian 
 house is what we should call a courtyard surrounded by sets of 
 apartments. On the other hand, paterfamilias has not only 
 never spoken to, but technically has never even been seen by, 
 any of the younger women of his varied household, except those 
 born within it, though they all dwell under his protection and at 
 his expense. You will perceive, therefore, that the women's 
 lives are contracted to within even a smaller sphere than that 
 limited by the boundaries of the common family dwelling. 
 
 What would seem to us to be intolerable restrictions by no 
 means end here. In many places it is not proper for a young 
 father to fondle his own children in the presence of his parents, 
 and highly improper for a wife to be seen holding converse, or 
 appearing unveiled, or sitting down before her own husband, 
 until she has become a mother. It is hard for us to realise how 
 artificially lonely a life hedged about in this way must be, and 
 how it must affect the temperament. Native writers tell us 
 that breaking the spirits of the brides is looked upon by mater- 
 familias as an essential part of education. Who can wonder 
 at it? 
 
 There is another custom regarding which it is useless to pre- 
 tend that it does not lead to endless misery and family squabbling 
 the absolute subjugation of the women to the materfarnilias. 
 The mother-in-law is indeed an awful personage in the eyes of 
 her son's wives, one against whose will and caprice it is hope- 
 less to rebel. I can hardly describe her power better than by 
 noticing a daily ceremony which symbolises it. It really 
 amounts to wishing " good morning," is called in Upper India 
 
15 
 
 mdthd teknd, and consists of bowing down to the ground and 
 touching it with the forehead. All the women, except her own 
 daughters, perform it daily to the materfamilias when they first 
 see her, and a bride must do it practically to everybody. 
 
 As the years advance, an Indian woman's happiness in life im- 
 mensely depends on her becoming the mother of a son. This 
 at once raises her in the family estimation, which is all in all to 
 her ; insures her against the greatest bitterness of widowhood, 
 in case that befall her ; and procures her domestic authority 
 should she survive to mature years under coverture. Mater- 
 familias is a veritable queen in her own little world, often 
 coercing her husband, commanding her sons, and ruling the 
 rest as she pleases. From what has come under my observa- 
 tion, I have long felt assured that, speak contemptuously of 
 the opposite sex as they choose, lock them up as they may, and 
 treat them as mere breeders of sons as they will, the natives of 
 India are far more henpecked than they care to admit. Outside 
 their homes the men live a life of their own, untrammelled by 
 considerations of the fair sex ; within them they have little con- 
 trol, and it must be borne in mind that it is the mature women 
 that have come to be such sticklers for the continuance of the 
 state of things I have above endeavoured to describe. The 
 remarks) ust made apply, as above said, to the mothers of sons 
 only. (^Should a woman be so unfortunate as not merely to be O 
 barren, 'But to be simply the mother of daughters, life goes much 
 harder with her, especially as this is so liable to bring upon her 
 that which (if their songs and proverbial sayings are to be 
 trusted) the Indian women dread more than all things except 
 widowhood the advent of the co-wife. There are proverbs in- 
 numerable to show how very badly co- wives get on, but " a 
 fairy for a co-wife is a devil," exhibits the mutual relation forcibly 
 and clearly as it usually is. And when the rival wife brings 
 forth the long-desired son, the barren woman's cup of bitterness 
 is full, and all her hatred towards him is, to those who know the 
 circumstances, well expressed in that most sarcastic of sayings 
 
i6 
 
 n any language, " The son of the co-wife." No more words are 
 wanting to the Indians to convey the expression of all uncharit- 
 ableness, and indeed even the kindliest of them will admit that 
 among them women and their step-children seldom do hit it off. 
 As to the hard lot of the childless widow, so much has been 
 said elsewhere, and so often, that I do not feel inclined to 
 enlarge upon it to-night, especially as enforced widowhood is 
 not nearly so general as is usually made out by those who 
 would deduce a moral from Indian manners to the glorification 
 of the habits of Christians. It is often not prevalent among 
 classes who conform generally to the customs I have been 
 mentioning, and circumstances make it impossible among many 
 that are not comparatively wealthy; but where it is the 
 rule nothing can be more cruel, and I feel justified in 
 using the strong term, more revolting. Take the case of 
 the widow from infancy ; shorn of all that women value 
 anywhere in the world, dressed in coarse clothing, deprived of 
 her ornaments, compelled to fast till health breaks down, made 
 to subsist on the coarsest of food, kept out of what amusements 
 come in the way of the rest of the household, forced into being 
 the unpaid drudge of the family,' held to be the legitimate butt 
 of the ill-nature of all, considered fit only to amuse the children, 
 openly called and taught to think herself a creature of ill-omen 
 this being the cause of all the rest of her sorrows supersti- 
 tion has indeed nowhere else shown more clearly its power to 
 pervert the reason ,of man. How much the women dread 
 widowhood is exhibited to the full in the fact that to call a 
 woman a widow is to offer her a dire insult, and from her 
 earliest childhood a girl is taught to pray that she may die while 
 yet the red spot of coverture remains on her forehead. In any 
 case the fear of widowhood overshadows the Hindu lady's life 
 even though she hate her lord ; just as it has often seemed to 
 me that the picture of the death in front of them must always 
 be before the minds of the orthodox Bengalis. We all know 
 how dearly cherished is the idea of a death with loving hands 
 
I? 
 
 about us to soothe our pains, and the sound of loving words to 
 comfort our last thoughts ; well, what has the Bengali before 
 him ? As soon as he is pronounced incurable, rightly or 
 wrongly, by the local quack, he is carried, still living, out of his 
 house, amid the screams of his widow to be and the wails of his 
 kindred, down to a river or pond to die, and there in all his 
 misery kept half immersed, whatever be the weather, until 
 death releases him, it may not be for days. One can never 
 know how it strikes those who must expect it as their most 
 probable end, but the vision of that last agonising journey and 
 the pain and suffering of it, the view of that muddy bank and 
 the darksome water and the horror of it, would be ever before 
 my eyes were I in such a position. 
 
 However, it is no part of my business to-night to tell a sensa- 
 tional tale, nor do I wish to convey an impression that an Indian 
 woman's life is necessarily all unhappiness. Human nature in 
 her case is as capable of adapting itself to circumstances as else- 
 where, and since the ultimate gauge of permanent individual 
 happiness is suitability of temperament to immediate surround- 
 ings, rriany a woman in India must be so constituted as to be 
 quite content with the life she is called upon to lead, and in 
 fact to enjoy it. When a girl is naturally sedate, yielding, 
 and good-natured, of blunt susceptibilities, limited aspirations, 
 and strong religious emotions, she will give in to her mother-in- 
 law, avoid quarrelling without effort, follow the course of life 
 laid down for her without demur, thoroughly believe it to be 
 the only desirable life to lead, find the innumerable restrictions 
 imposed upon her not unwelcome, and become contented with her 
 contracted sphere ; and if those about her happen to be kind, 
 be quite as happy in a gentle way as any girl in the world. 
 But the potentialities for misery involved in her surroundings 
 are enormous, and where such is the case, to argue that misery 
 is not the frequent result would be to argue against human 
 nature. At all events the purview of her life is limited to a de- 
 gree which it is difficult for us to realise. It resolves itself daily 
 
i8 
 
 into this : the strict performance of petty religious ceremonies, 
 feeding, bathing, dressing, cooking, and household drudgery, all 
 so hedged round with minute regulations as to make each 
 a special occupation, and to these must be added visiting 
 and gossip during her afternoon leisure. How petty that gossip 
 must be can be inferred from the facts already laid before you. 
 Remember that the great majority of these ladies are altogether 
 uneducated, that ever since they have been old enough to 
 observe and think they have been shut out from the world, 
 that they have no knowledge of any person or thing beyond 
 those immediately around them except what they can pick up 
 from their menials, and then you will have no difficulty in 
 understanding that their interests are centred in their jewels 
 and ornaments, their food, their personal concerns and troubles, 
 the peculiarities of the members of their households, and lastly 
 and chiefly, in what social ceremonies and feasts happen to 
 come their way, the widows being shut out from even these. If 
 a marriage, a death, or a birth among their kindred were the 
 only landmarks in English ladies' lives, we should soon have 
 these occasions erected into as lengthy family ceremonies as 
 they are in India. If the observance of Ash Wednesday, 
 Shrove Tuesday, Candlemas, Michaelmas, Lady-day, May-day, 
 and what not of our standard religious and secular feasts were 
 the main opportunities for breaking the monotony of an im- 
 prisoned life, how carefully they would be kept, and how 
 anxiously looked forward to. This is why all the innumerable 
 shankrdnts, ekddshis, ashthamis, ndumis, and other queer fasts and 
 feasts are so regularly attended to in India. Indeed, female 
 ingenuity has there long ago seized upon the many other op- 
 portunities for diversion afforded by occurrences incidental to 
 human existence, and there are ceremonies to be gone through 
 on every possible excuse. No phase of life escapes childhood, 
 puberty, pregnancy, maternity, widowhood, all come in for a 
 share. The first tying of a rag round a boy's loins occasions a 
 family feast, and so does the first time his hair is cut, the first 
 
'9 
 
 time he puts on thejaneu, or sign of caste ; and so on all through 
 life. Before he is a man he has gone through sixteen sacra- 
 ments, each a notable occasion in the eyes of his women folk. 
 Babies are put through all sorts of ceremonies, on the first, the 
 fifth, the seventh, the fortieth, and other days after birth. They 
 cannot even see the sun for the first time, and, of course, cannot, 
 be given a name, without a feast being held over the fact. As 
 to the women's special ceremonies, they are just as numerous, 
 and, though before a mixed audience I am here treading on 
 delicate ground, it would be giving an incomplete picture of 
 the native woman if all allusion to them were avoided. Of 
 their tenor and effect I shall, however, have probably said 
 enough in telling you that many of them are meant to give pro- 
 minence to domestic occurrences of such a nature as to render 
 innocence and a delicate mind impossible to an Indian girl. 
 
 This leads me to comment on a matter regarding which 
 interested natives and imperfectly informed Europeans are fond 
 of throwing much undeserved blame on the Anglo-Indians, and 
 that is, as to their not mixing socially with the natives. 
 ; Especially is this reproach levelled at the English ladies whose 
 j lot is cast in India. Now there are two sides to this question, 
 and I will take that one on which, as a close and long observer 
 of Indian character and habits, I have formed a strong opinion ; 
 and I will say at once that this charge, though plausible, is 
 very unfair. Granting that coldness is the besetting sin of the 
 English, our manners are effusiveness itself when compared with 
 those of the Indians. How, I ask, are we to be socially friendly 
 with a people who will not eat or drink with us ? To offer to 
 whom such a simple and natural kindness as a cup of water to 
 quench thirst, or, it may be, to alleviate pain, is an offence 
 against religious feelings ? To be on terms of friendliness or of 
 mutual respect is, even in these circumstances, easy, and I may 
 say that such relations are common enough in India ; but is it 
 possible for true sociability to exist ? It is not making use of 
 exaggeration to say that it does not obtain between natives 
 
2O 
 
 themselves, unless they happen to be of the same caste. Again, 
 all the world over, to admit a rnan to the society of wife and 
 children is to acknowledge inferiority, unless such courtesy is 
 mutual ; and does not the Englishman in India know full well 
 that if he introduce a native to his home the compliment will 
 never be returned ? I will go further, and say that to refuse 
 food at another man's hands as being polluted by contact with 
 him is to place him in an inferior position. It is all very well 
 to assert that the native is bound to act thusTbylTis religious 
 customs, but every nationality must reasonably'take the con- 
 sequences of any peculiarities of custom it chooses to adopt, and 
 the Indian cannot fairly blame the average Englishman for 
 thinking that proper self-respect makes it impossible for him to 
 hold familiar intercourse with those that cannot allow social 
 equality. The fact is, the ordinary European who knows the 
 country will not stand the galling claim to racial superiority 
 conveyed in Indian manners, and while these remain what they 
 are he will hold aloof from those who practise them. This 
 is natural, and though religious susceptibilities have un- 
 doubtedly a strong claim to consideration, human nature 
 has a claim that will not brook being passed over. The 
 argument that superior civilisation should cause the English to 
 sink their feelings, can be met by the more cogent and practical 
 one, that where masses of people are concerned, nature will 
 always keep the upper hand, with the result in this case that so 
 long as the Indian's ways continue to be exclusive, the master- 
 ful Englishman will resent them. It may be said, however, 
 that women are not excluded from Indian harems, and that if 
 the Anglo-Indian is himself prevented from doing so, his wife 
 and daughters might at any rate visit the Indian ladies. As to 
 this, I dare to say that education and free intercourse with the 
 world at large has rendered English ladies socially so im- 
 measurably superior to those of India, that association of any 
 kind except of a ceremonial nature is impracticable to all but 
 the specially prepared. It is not fair to ask, and, as matters 
 
21 
 
 still are, but questionably prudent to encourage, a pure-minded 1 
 and well brought up but inexperienced English girl, as we un- 
 derstand these words, to be on intimate terms with an average 
 specimen of the zenana, until the latter is rendered more fitted 
 for her society. The truth is that the want of companionship 
 so observable between dark and fair in India is due, firstly, to 
 Indian customs, and, secondly, to the comparatively low mental 
 and moral condition of the well-born female population, and not, 
 as is usually asserted, to British pride. 
 
 Now, with reference to the rough sketch I have given you 
 to-night of what I may term the normal state of things in India, 
 I would again draw your attention to the fact that I am far 
 from saying that such is the invariable rule, or from denying 
 that there are whole castes whose women are not secluded, and 
 that many are educated. I feel compelled to repeat that minute 
 and endless variation is the chief characteristic -of Indian 
 society, in case it may be thought that my analysis of a high- 
 caste Hindu woman's life is exactly applicable to that of every 
 woman one meets in the roads and fields. The fact is that 
 there is no subject on which it is easier to speak to generalities 
 from isolated facts, and it is so wide and complicated, that one 
 can hardly make a broad assertion without with perfect truth 
 being contradicted as to the specific custom at any given spot. 
 I merely say that the above description is, as fairly as I can 
 make it, applicable to the life actually led by millions of Indian 
 women, and it is the style of life towards which nearly all of 
 them unconsciously gravitate. 
 
 But, what a life ! What a gloomy picture you have drawn ! 
 are expressions which would] naturally spring to your lips. Is 
 it, however, overdrawn ? My reply to this question is : Go to 
 the East and watch the manners and ways of the nationalities 
 who seclude and who do not seclude their women. Where 
 there is seclusion, brightness and youthfulness are absent from 
 the manner ; the laughter is not happy, it is spiteful ; the 
 smiles are not of the pleased, but of the cynical. Where 
 
22 
 
 there is no seclusion brightness and youthfulness are the cha- 
 racteristics of the people ; there is happiness and good humour 
 in their laughter ; there is pleasure and kindliness in the smiles. 
 It comes to this, as an observation on society, lock up and 
 distrust the women and the brilliance will flicker out of life. 
 If you doubt this, go to Hindustan which secludes, 'and then to 
 Burma, Siam and Malaysia which do not ; go to China which 
 secludes and then to Japan which does not. On the one side 
 the secluded side you will find sombreness and gravity to be 
 the prevailing characteristics, on the other sunshine and light- 
 heartedness. Is all this to count for nothing ? Is the contrast 
 to have no meaning ? One conclusion I would, at any rate, 
 press upon your notice. The range of these phenomena prove 
 that they are not traceable, as is sometimes said, to the reli- 
 .gion followed, nor, as is sometimes also said by our detractors, 
 to the baleful presence of British rule ! 
 
 But, in spite of all this, there are a couple of proverbial say- 
 ings which apply most aptly to the present case: "There are 
 two sides to every question " and " Mankind is better than its 
 laws." Thus, where mutual kindness and love of children are 
 present families do manage to adapt themselves successfully to 
 the zenana and its ways, and where natural ability has been 
 possessed in an irrepressible degree women have risen superior 
 to their home education and surroundings and shown themselves 
 to be capable administrators of estates and even of kingdoms. 
 Genuine and noble heroines are by no means unknown to 
 Indian story. So you must not be surprised to hear that many 
 of the women subjected to the kind of life you have had de- 
 scribed to you are not at all aware that it is gloomy or unhappy. 
 It is a well-known and ascertained fact that while their Wes- 
 tern sisters are pitying them from the bottom of their kindly 
 hearts, the Eastern women in their turn are pitying the women 
 of the West. And for what ? For their freedom, their educa- 
 tion, their obligations to appear in public and act for themselves, 
 their want of protection ! 
 
23 
 
 Nevertheless, there are many men and some women among 
 the natives, who are fully aware that the existing mode of 
 female life could be exchanged for something more vigorous, 
 more elevated, more helpful towards the advancement of their 
 kind : and many are the serious attempts that have been made 
 both by natives and Europeans in the past fifty years to bring 
 -about a wholesomer and more rational state of things. Societies 
 have been started all over India, both orthodox and "ad- 
 vanced," which have for years been doing much useful work in 
 a quiet and sober way towards the discontinuance of infant 
 marriage, the promotion of the remarriage of widows, and the 
 advancement of female education. Some of these are found 
 among the humbler and some among the wealthiest and most 
 powerful classes in the country. One great victory they have 
 already achieved is that the great, the powerful, the learned, 
 the orthodox in all parts of India have boldly and loudly pro- 
 claimed that neither infant marriage nor perpetual widowhood 
 have the sanction of what the Hindus rather hazily call their 
 Scriptures. 
 
 The effect of these societies was long mainly visible on the 
 surface in funny advertisements, in the style of the Matrimonial 
 News, by young gentlemen willing to meet with widowed vir- 
 gins, who are of course quite common in India, possessed of 
 certain qualifications. Ridiculous as their accounts of them- 
 selves were, and queer as appeared to be their ideal of woman- 
 hood, the advertisers acted in all earnestness, and their 
 announcements were the outcome of an important social move- 
 ment. But under the surface many cases have come under my 
 personal notice of literate Hindus in all ranks of life, who 
 setting their faces against child-marriage, often in the teeth of 
 more than painful opposition, in a manner that did them all the 
 more credit because they were in too humble a station to gain 
 any notoriety thereby were steadily educating their girls, 
 avowedly in the hope that those they held dear might be saved 
 from that life of empty superstition I have to-night endeavoured 
 
2.4 
 
 to bring before you. In education you will at once see lies the 
 reaTTemedy against nearly every evil to which Indian women 
 at the present day are by custom liable. However, in con- 
 sidering the work of these reformers, we must not lose sight of 
 those efforts, to which I alluded in the earlier part of my dis- 
 course, on the part of the low out-caste Hindus to be included 
 within the pale of the orthodox by imitating their imperfections^ 
 Taken woman for woman, it is still, I think, true, that there 
 are far more women at the bottom of the tree who are being 
 newly obliged to undergo seclusion and the miseries of Hindu 
 widowhood, than there are at the top, whom growing enlighten- 
 ment is releasing therefrom. Still the hopeful observation is 
 that there are already many indications that it is a race between 
 the hare and the tortoise. 
 
 Among concerted European efforts, and every effort to be of 
 any permanent value must, in so difficult a matter, be concerted, 
 I will mention first the Zenana Missions, which aim at educat- 
 ing the inmates of the zenanas to a higher and more cheerful 
 life by means of personal example, exhibited through an intimate 
 acquaintance with them. The opposing force to be encountered 
 here is the power of those in possession to refuse the requisite 
 permission to enter their homes and pass the barriers set up 
 and maintained by ignorance and its constant companion, bigotry. 
 The great lever for opening this difficult door is medical aid, 
 a fact which was long ago perceived and acted on by isolated 
 ladies resident in India, who here and there visited the zenanas 
 and began their noble task of the moral regeneration of the 
 w (3* women, by teachjng^gifls to read-aad-write, and the elements .of 
 sanitajiori__a.nd__of^ Western medic^lJmDwledge, so that their 
 vT' .pupils might intheir turn: teach others of their own race, and so 
 make a small beginning, destinecf^it was hoped, to bear much 
 more than salutary fruit for the far-off generations to come... 
 These sporadic efforts at laying a foundation were taken up and 
 .systematised by the Zenana Mission Societies, who have made 
 the medical care of the secluded woman their direct aim. , It. 
 
 
25 
 
 was out of the public discussion which their efforts and methods 
 brought about that what is known as Lady Dufferin's Fund 
 arose. This movement differed from its forerunners and con- 
 temporaries in being entirely secular and medical. But, by 
 attacking only obvious and undeniable defects, and leaving 
 religious prejudices alone, it is the movement that will most 
 surely insert the wedge and lift the lever that is to open the 
 door. 
 
 Running over its objects we find that, first, comes medical 
 tuition, next medical relief, and lastly, the supply of female 
 trained nurses and midwives. The immediate aims are 
 not very lofty, as will have been perceived, nor are they 
 complicated ; but in practice the idea underlying them goes 
 to the root of the mischief it is sought to eradicate. For, 
 where direct or implied missionary effort might for ever 
 fail, attempts at the alleviation of purely physical suffer- 
 ing may well succeed, and it is a happy feature of the 
 particular endeavours now being made that they must neces- 
 sarily elevate the tone of the Indian female mind, because they 
 include education of a right sort. Ever since the kindly wives 
 of English officials and residents commenced their lonely efforts 
 there has been hope. Ever since the Zenana Missions showed 
 how those efforts could be combined and the way to get at the 
 hearts of the people, there has been strong hope. And now 
 that the Dufferin Fund has brought their methods within the 
 range of practical politics, there is much more than merely con- 
 firmed hope ; there is certainty of ultimate success. 
 
 I feel that it is difficult to find words to bring home to you 
 the solid practical good done by the native and European efforts 
 I have been noticing, for it is n^l_at-aiLeas^__withoutstudy on 
 the spot and well-informed reflection thereon, to realise what is 
 involved in the secluded life and in the habits and superstitions 
 of its followers. But it will have been perceived that the essence 
 of the life I have described to-night is confinement to the 
 house ; a life from which all healthy bodily exercise is under 
 
26 
 
 any circumstances absent. Now, this is bad enough in a palace,, 
 even where, as in India, the palace consists of a collection of 
 apartments inside a high-walled garden ; but in India, as every- 
 where else, palaces are very few and far between, and space in 
 towns is limited and valuable. There the common courtyard 
 is contracted to a few feet square, forming a sort of well, round 1 
 which the dwelling rooms run several stories into the air, just 
 as they do in London and for the same reason. All native con- 
 servancy, too, regulates itself, except where the English in- 
 terfere, and wherever their intervention is exercised native 
 ingenuity is directed mainly towards the best means of thwart- 
 ing their well-intentioned efforts. The true Indian has a 
 deeply-rooted conviction, born of Brahmanism, that water, as 
 such, purifies all things, a theory that causes him immeasurable 
 suffering in the present, and of which it is to be hoped for his 
 own sake he will in the early future realise the terrible fallacy. 
 If female life be necessarily unhealthy in the palaces, as it un- 
 doubtedly is, what can it but be in the cramped imitations 
 thereof to be counted by thousands in the Indian townships ? 
 But these many-storied town dwellings are the mansions of the 
 relatively rich, and are as very palaces in comparison with the 
 much more numerous houses of the respectable possessors of 
 small incomes. It has often been my duty, for various reasons,, 
 to inspect these humbler houses, and I will say that callous or 
 prejudiced indeed must be the heart of him that can mark the 
 tumble-down mud hovels doing duty for the rooms, the sodden 
 floor of the ten feet square of bare earth that answers to the 
 garden, the dingy tattered rag that curtains off the zenana, the 
 horrible, half-hidden corner that is the family privy, and find 
 no place for pity for those whom custom shuts up for life within 
 the dilapidated mud walls that surround this apology for a 
 home. High caste Hindus' houses are often exquisitely clean v 
 but many a Muhammadan dwelling I have entered is very 
 much the reverse, and in either case the laws of sanitation are, 
 to put it gently, not understood. In such circumstances health 
 
27 
 
 s, as a matter of course, feeble, and disease of the respiratory 
 and digestive organs rampant. 
 
 I am bound also to touch here upon a delicate subject. Par- 
 turition in such houses as those just described is, for reasons- 
 that will be readily understood, dangerous and exceedingly 
 painful. How important a point this last is may be explained 
 by the fact that every woman, except the infant widow, is 
 married, and that the most cherished desire of the sex is the 
 bearing of a son. We in England are accustomed to be told 
 that women have better chances of longevity than men ; but 
 look over the death statistics of the women in India, between the 
 ages of fifteen and thirty, and you will see that circumstances 
 can locally reverse a natural law. It was then with the object 
 of preventing some at least of the unnecessary suffering caused 
 by prejudice and custom and, it must be added, by Indian 
 midwifery that the Marchioness of Dufferin took in hand her 
 scheme of female medical aid for the Indian women. 
 
 As I was for some years the president of one of the branches 
 thereof in Burma, I had to inform myself in some detail as to 
 the superstitions and the consequent practices relating to mater- 
 nity in that country. It has been wisely said that bad social 
 customs are the outcome of correct deductions from false pre- 
 missesr^rroTlt is in T5J5~T7gy~that many obvious cruelties, "oT" 
 pracTlcT^aTe--phtrosopEically explatned. The observation cer- 
 tainly applies to those relating to the lying-in room in Burma ; 
 where, based on the old false medical theory of the humours, of 
 which fortunately for us we have but a few such social expres- 
 sions as good and bad and dry humour left as mementos, 
 maternity is attended with such terrible customs as to be 
 positively dreaded by the women. If it were possible for 
 me now to explain some of them, you would understand why 
 the bright girl you knew this year is often the trouble- 
 worn woman of the next. Blithe and lively she will still 
 be. It requires more than maternity, even as she experiences 
 it, to take that spirit out of a Burmese woman, but 
 
28 
 
 signs of the horror of what she has been through will be on 
 her. Something of the kind also is the lot of many a caste 
 woman in India, and I -clearly remember that some years ago 
 there appeared in the public press there, a strong and sympathetic 
 account of the untimely fate of a girl-mother she had known, by. 
 a competent hand I was well acquainted with. But I wish you 
 all to clearly understand that, cruel as these customs are, they 
 are not intentionally so. Ceremonial cruelty never is. The 
 perpetrators thereof are distinctly cruel only to be kind. Every 
 -suffering thus inflicted is for the good of the patient as they 
 see it. 
 
 Now I am speaking before an. Association which aims at the 
 improvement of the existing position of the women of this 
 country. But how very much superior even that is to the 
 position I have endeavoured to bring home to you to-night. 
 This and kindred Associations are peculiarly adapted to a 
 sympathetic view of my subject, and I shall not have spoken 
 in vain here if I have succeeded in making so far clear the matters / 
 to be remedied, the need for the remedy, and the efforts being 
 made to that end, as to create something jnorejhan sympathy fl 
 a desire to actively assist in^the great work of the AssocTafionsj) 
 irTlndia, whose noble ^selfamposed duties I have all too briefly ' 
 sketched. A work that was, I will not say initiated, because 
 t'hat is not true, but given a lasting impetus, to her great honour, 
 by the Marchioness of Dufferin, that has all along had the active 
 sympathy of our gracious Sovereign herself, and has been pushed 
 forward, not emotionally or spasmodically but steadily, soberly 
 and tactfully, by every vice-reine since Lady Dufferin's time. 
 
 I think it no exaggeration to repeat now in conclusion what 
 I have already said in effect elsewhere on this great sub- 
 ject. In no part of the world is the saying that the history of 
 a people is a thing apart from the history of politics so true as it 
 is in India. There kings come and go, empires and systems 
 and faiths arise and disappear, but the development of the 
 domestic economy proceeds along a path of its own ; and it 
 
2 9 
 
 needs no great gift of prophecy to foresee, that if the efforts 
 initiated by the British ruling class succeed in relieving the 
 Indian women of all avoidable suffering, and in giving a useful 
 impetus to that right education on which their ultimate emanci- 
 pation from unnecessary trammels depends, British rule in 
 India and the East will have brought about at any rate one 
 splendid achievement, merciful and compassionate, redounding 
 to its lasting credit and earning for it a justly affectionate 
 remembrance, long after the current political storms have 
 vanished into the regions of history, long after the highest of 
 the living philosophies has died a natural death, and, it may be, 
 long after the British Empire in the East has become but a 
 memory of the past. 
 
 DISCUSSION. 
 
 THE CHAIRMAN, SIR OWEN TUDOR BURNE, G.C.I.E., K.C.S.I., 
 
 rose to invite discussion on the subject of the lecture, and said : 
 " I am quite sure, by the encouraging way in which the paper has 
 been received, that you agree with me in thinking that Colonel 
 Temple has brought a most important subject to our notice in 
 graphuyclear and, inteiligenrterms. We English men and women 
 have a great duty to perform towards India, and great responsi- 
 bilities in regard to one of the most important parts of our own 
 empire. Colonel Temple has painted the-pictufe with the brush 
 ol a true artist, yet he has given that picture a somewhat sombre 
 hue. I propose, without in any way contradicting anything 
 that he has said, to try and throw a little gleam of sunshine 
 upon the picture. It is quite true that Hindu society is very 
 strict ; it is quite true that infant marriage is a thing we all 
 disapprove ; but we must remember that for hundreds of years 
 in that country the girl who is not married is looked upon as 
 disgraced, and that a man is not considered respectable until 
 his marriage. The Hindu gentlemen turn round upon the 
 
30 
 
 Anglo-Indian bachelor and say what a fool he is, how wretched 
 is his lot! Then in regard to widows there are 21,000,000 
 poor widows in India suffering to the extent that Colonel Temple 
 has described. Again, it is quite true that the mother-in-law 
 dominates the household, and that the grandmother takes up 
 the stick and gives the bride a good thrashing ; it is quite true 
 that these poor secluded women wander about from room to 
 room, spend hours in putting up their hair and taking it down 
 again, in putting on their jewels and taking them off, in reading 
 novels and in gossip and tittle-tattle all about nothing. But is 
 not that so in our own households in the West ? But in Indian 
 life there is a feeling of religion according to their lights in the 
 ruling of the family, a feeling of kindness between relatives, a 
 desire to help one another which we do not often see or at all 
 events do not always see in our own country. When you ask 
 an educated, intelligent Hindu gentleman " Have you any 
 authority for infant marriage or for widowhood ? " or for those 
 many customs Colonel Temple has described, he says : " No 
 authority of any kind. It has simply arisen from mediaeval 
 Hinduism, because in the original Bible of the Hindus a woman 
 was elevated to the highest position and led an untrammelled 
 life ; and in restoring woman to her proper place in India you 
 are only doing what the Hindu Scriptures have enjoined upon 
 every Hindu." Colonel Temple has referred to Lady Dufferin's 
 Fund, and I should like to say that the original idea emanated 
 from a Hindu lady : it was mentioned to the Queen and sug- 
 gested by her to Lady Dufferin, who in a noble manner stamped 
 it with her name. There is no doubt, as Lord Curzon reminded 
 us the other day, that when you cannot enter Hindu households^ 
 by means of any other argument whatever, there is one plat- l^i 
 form upon which you can always enter, and that is medicine. ^ 
 Not only are 300 or 400 native ladies now instructed in medicine, 
 but about 800,000 women in the Zenanas are being helped by 
 ourselves in this manner. I would impress one thing upon you 
 whilst we may reach the Zenanas by medicine, we must never 
 
forget that we are what we are in India by virtue of being a Chris- 
 tian power, and I cannot but remember what was said by Sir John 
 Lawrence in 1858, that while our equal and impartial forbear- 
 ance towards all creeds differing from our own has always con- 
 stituted one of our first claims towards the confidence of the 
 people of India, we are never to forget we are a Christian nation 
 carrying out Christian principles. I therefore wish, while 
 speaking respectfully of Lady Dufferin'sFund,to offer my humble 
 meed of praise to the Zenana associations at home and the 
 many means by which we have entered the Zenanas, and more 
 than that, have given them our own Bible ; because when the 
 Hindu examines our Scriptures he finds that his own are taken 
 from them. We must remember that any movement to be safe 
 must be slow. 
 
 SIR JOHN JARDINE, K.C.I.E. : Sir Owen Tudor Burne, 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : Colonel Temple has said that he 
 spoke under correction, but it would be very difficult for any- 
 one to correct the thoughtful and careful statement of an officer 
 so distinguished in the world of Indian research. I have been 
 in big cities and in small places in India, I have attended many 
 of the Hindu festivals with much satisfaction, and I can say 
 that, speaking generally, I agree with nearly all the facts 
 Colonel Temple has stated. As he has said, in so immense a 
 population, among people speaking many languages, there must 
 be many facts that no one person can find out. As regards Brah- 
 manism not having any strong persistence in dogma, custom 
 seizes upon them, prescribes rules about washing, dying, etc., 
 and finds their chiefs a better set of ancestors than they have 
 ever been aware of before. The matter was much discussed in 
 Westminster Abbey in a series of lectures ; of course it concerns 
 itself with caste and marriage, and in India the custom has a 
 certain sway it has not here. The native says it is custom or 
 religion : both words mean very much the same thing in his 
 mind. Marriage is the thing round which most of the life of 
 
32 
 
 women in India turns ; it is chiefly ruled by the amalgamation of 
 custom and religion ; ifc i& -Strictly regulated by caste rules. The 
 young man and the young woman in India are not asked what 
 they think of their future partner, it is no business of theirs, the 
 contract is made by the fathers and mothers. It is not what we 
 are accustomed to here, but still, there is the authority of 
 Doctor Johnson for stating that marriages would be just as 
 happy made in this manner. Speaking generally, the people 
 in India do not want anything else. Again, it is quite true, as 
 Doctor Johnson says, "their pots of happiness" may not be 
 such big ones as in this part of the world, but I should say that 
 their " pots of happiness," such as they are, are filled up. I am not 
 going to take such a sombre view as that of Colonel Temple, 
 but this is partly because my home has been more in Southern 
 India, where even the Brahman women are in the habit of going 
 out in public ; so that though society as it increases in respec- 
 tability tends rather towards these restrictions of Brahmanism, 
 there are many people who live quite outside them, mixing 
 with other women, seeing the men at the great feasts round 
 the temples, and having a great many of the same amusements 
 in a quiet way, and a certain amount of fun in their homes. 
 They have always seemed to me to lead fairly happy lives. 
 Their day is spent in bathing in the tanks, chatting on subjects 
 of interest to them, etc. When I say that marriage is a con- 
 tract made by the fathers and mothers, I ought to say that it 
 is done in a fairly business-like fashion. I well remember once, 
 as a bachelor, when holding a diplomatic appointment I had to 
 assist in getting a certain prince to marry the daughter of 
 another prince. He was not at all willing, and I had to use 
 various arguments to try and convince him that this was what 
 he must do. Neither of the contracting parties had ever seen 
 each other ; and he proceeded to put a few questions and give 
 me a lecture on marriage. First he said a sensible father has 
 to enquire about the disposition of the girl ; is not that right ? 
 I said it was. Then, he must find out whether she is beautiful. 
 
33 
 
 I had to agree. If they come to like the officer of the district, 
 and he is a bachelor, they say, " How is it you are not married ? " 
 He says, " There is nobody in this forest or this desert, I can 
 find nobody of my caste." " Oh," they answer, " Colonel So- 
 and-So, who lives so many miles away, has daughters, why not 
 select one of them ? " In Burma there is a different course of 
 things, and more advantages. The old Hindu law has been 
 broken, and if the young people stand up for themselves the 
 fathers and mothers have to give way. This enormous differ- 
 ence is partly due to the race, but it also has to do with the 
 different quality of the Buddhist religion. We find this ex- 
 plained in Sir Edwin Arnold's poem. If the women have equal 
 rights with men in regard to marriage, divorce, and everything 
 else, this must tend to the equality of the sexes. We find in 
 their books a good many intimations that they regard women 
 and married life far more in the way that we do, the women 
 lead an independent life, and do quite as much of the business 
 of the country as the men, and are, as far as I can judge from 
 what I see in Burma, superior to the masculine sex. In the 
 Southern provinces the women are not much confined, and in 
 Bombay a number of them go forth and mix with the Europeans 
 at large meetings and gatherings. Some of them come to the 
 examinations of the girls' schools, and the giving of prizes, and 
 there is a reform party which includes many of the Brahmans 
 men of the highest intellect. The problem, however, is, when 
 all admissions are made, how to alter the bad parts of the ex- 
 isting state of things ? I agree entirely with what has been said 
 by the previous speakers about the advantage of the Dufferin 
 Fund and the necessity of education. Once I found in examin- 
 ing a girls' school, a little widow among the pupils. Her father 
 was a Brahman, and he was trying to give her as much enjoy- 
 ment as she could possibly obtain from reading, writing, and 
 so on. They say, too, as is said about the half-time question 
 here, that the fathers and mothers do not like to give up the 
 labour of the children. There are other matters to be touched 
 
34 
 
 on in regard to doing some good in India, and it has often 
 seemed to me that it is difficult for rulers to interfere with 
 things so near the domestic life of the people. They are doing 
 what they can ; many men, high in the Brahman caste, are 
 actively exerting themselves in such matters as girls' schools 
 and the training of future wives up to the VI. standard. As to 
 the reason for the Government not meddling much I will men- 
 tion one or two things. In Burma they may divorce themselves, 
 if husband and wife agree, and on mere caprice against the will 
 of the other. There was once an attempt to introduce a new 
 law in regard to marriage, and we found there was hardly any 
 information to be got with regard to the validity of marriage, 
 and the Viceroy's Government prudently left the matter alone. 
 1 agree with the Chairman that any movement to be safe has 
 to be rather slow, but there are many reasons to hope that the 
 future will be better and brighter. 
 
 Miss BILLINGTON congratulated Colonel Temple on his lecture, 
 and was very much of opinion that it was not well to convey 
 too strong an impression of the Indian woman's loneliness, for 
 they must remember that by heredity she was prepared for her 
 secluded life. If she was given education of course she would 
 look for more liberty, but uneducated as she at present was she 
 was quite happy in her life. When the Indian woman was 
 educated she was capable of doing an immense deal. One 
 subject she wished to touch upon the extremely low ratio of 
 crime where the Indian woman was concerned. They had 
 only two forms of crime, one the crime of infanticide, and theft, 
 the latter they committed at the instigation of their men folk. 
 If these two things were eliminated the ratio of crime would 
 be very low. 
 
 MR. COLDSTREAM said the lecture had afforded him great 
 pleasure, as he had been thirty-three years in India and could 
 bear testimony to the exceeding accuracy of Colonel Temple's 
 
35 
 
 information. He would like to touch upon one or two points. 
 One that marriage among Hindoos was not looked upon 
 always as a purely commercial business, it was looked upon 
 by them as a religious ceremony. Marriage was so solemn and 
 important to them that the practice of divorce was unknown in 
 the Hindu religion ; the marriage contract was indissoluble. He 
 did not think the life of the Hindu woman was unhappy. They 
 went out to a considerable extent among the higher classes 
 perhaps not among the highest, but among the Brahmans and 
 well-to-do commercial classes in covered carts and other con- 
 veyances. The influence of the women in the society of India 
 was enormous, and there was no doubt that the women were 
 the real hindrance to the progress of the country ; they were 
 the servitors of superstition and the subtle element progress has 
 to fight in that country. The men became impressed with the / 
 idea of progress ; they came home and their ideas were scoffed 
 at and their good intentions so mocked at that they gave them 
 up because their homes would not be tolerable if they carried 
 them out. He felt that all interested in the welfare of Indian 
 women should be extremely thankful and grateful for the 
 Zenana Mission and for Lady Dufferin's Fund. 
 
 MR. MARTIN WOOD expressed his appreciation of Colonel 
 Temple's paper, but thought it should be somewhat qualified, 
 as in places the shade was a little too dark. He cordially 
 agreed with all that had been said regarding Lady Dufferin's 
 Fund and the Zenana Associations, and wished also to mention 
 the Anglo-Indian Association, which had been established 
 entirely to bring together the two places. 
 
 A vote of thanks having been carried unanimously 
 
 COLONEL TEMPLE said : I feel rather gratified that no one has 
 adversely criticised my remarks this evening, for as I have 
 already said two or three times, it is impossible to speak to 
 generalities on the subject without being liable to contradiction 
 as to any particular fact in any particular place. What I have 
 
36 
 
 tried to do is to bring before you a general view as near the 
 truth as I can make it, and I am glad that my efforts have been 
 appreciated. With regard to what the Chairman has said : it 
 is quite true that the stumbling-block to social reform in India 
 is, as I remarked in the lecture, that orthodoxy involves re- 
 spectability, and it is because this is so that it is so very hard 
 for native men or women to fall in with our ideas ; therefore 
 those that do so should all the more have our sympathy. You 
 need to know India to know what a very difficult thing it is for 
 a native to change any custom. Miss Billington has remarked 
 that one great fact is the rareness of crime among the women. 
 I can tell you something about that, as I have some 12,000 life 
 convicts in my charge all that there are in the country and 
 out of this number there are only 800 women. That means that 
 out of a population of some 300,000,000 there are only 800 life 
 convict women. So it is quite true that the women of India 
 seldom commit serious crimes. But one reason for this is that 
 women who are secluded have not, of course, the same tempta- 
 tion to commit crime as those that are free ; they never get 
 outside their houses ! It has been said that I have drawn rather 
 
 1 was, of course, aware that it was 
 
 possible that that view might be taken, but the fact I was 
 anxious to bring before you is that the life is very narrow rather 
 than unhappy. Mr. Coldstream has remarked that the women 
 get about a good deal. This is true as regards all, except the 
 upper class Brahman, the Mussalmans and the very rich. But 
 on the other hand there is a celebrated book written by an 
 English lady, married to a rich native at Lucknow about 1830, 
 and she tells a story of a Muhammadan lady, well known in 
 Lucknow and possessing great influence, who had never seen 
 a bridge ! The English lady suggested thaTshlTshould go with 
 her and see a bridge ; but the answer was that the husband 
 would not like it, and so the orthodox wife died without ever 
 doing so. This is a fact that will bring home to you how very 
 narrow the secluded life must be. 
 
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