Page:Between the twilights being studies of Indian women by one of themselves (IA betweentwilights00soraiala).pdf/140

120 seems to me, of some distorted view of danger to modesty, as well as of a becoming respect and reverence, it is hard to disentangle the Indian conception of the love of a maid for a man. But this is certain, it is unlike what is the ideal in the West. There is worship; he is her God; he has brought God close to her. She is created to serve him with all her powers of mind and body, to serve and never criticize or question. The habit of her life is expressive of the relationship. The day is planned round his needs. She brings water to wash his feet, cooks for him, anticipates his smallest want while he eats; if he leaves on the green plantain leaf of orthodoxy one mouthful for the faithful slave, how happy she is the day long!

At his hands she holds her life. … I remember a poor little woman who had been induced by some modern-minded friend to resent the drunken belabourings of her husband. … She ran away to the protection of a relative, and all the Zenana held up hands of horror, not at the beating but at her resentment of it. “What! did she not know that Hindu wives belonged to their husbands, to be done with as they would? Would she not