Page:Between the twilights being studies of Indian women by one of themselves (IA betweentwilights00soraiala).pdf/123

Rh I have spoken of one type of widow, the rarest; some there are who identify themselves with the thing accursed, who have not the strength, like that other, to falsify the curse by every moment’s life of blessed service, many who accept misery as their portion; some who distract themselves from misery by vice or by lapses from virtue. … The odd thing is that modern Hinduism, as represented by the Priesthood, would wink at the last-named, while excommunicating the virtuous widow who re-married. I said “the odd thing,” but wrongly, for of course, if my earlier conclusion be true, and modern Hinduism is a system of canonical “Thou-shalt-nots” and not of refined ethics (as in the Shasthras), the Priests are quite consistent.

“You shall be outcast. I will not dine with you.”

It is but another anomaly in this land of anomalies that that should be the strongest possible sanction in a community where there is no social intercourse in the Western sense, where individual families live so entirely aloof, that their womenkind do not visit each other.

But the fact is, there is nothing more