Page:Between the twilights being studies of Indian women by one of themselves (IA betweentwilights00soraiala).pdf/148



AKE first the Indian wife. Was there ever the world over a like conception of the married state? Chief priestess of her husband, whom to serve is her religion and her delight. One with him in the economy of the household, certainly, but moving in a plane far below him for all other purposes—religious, mental, social; gentle and adoring, but incapable of participation in the larger interests of his life, incapable of participation even in his games.

“We are richer,” “we are poorer”—that the bounds of a joint intelligence. To please his mother, whose chief handmaiden she is in things domestic, and to bring him a son—these her two ambitions; but the latter chiefly, for to the mother of a son will a husband forgive even wrangles in the house-place.