Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/209

 XXXVI

March 27, 1903.

T is always said of the girls here that, "they are well provided for, and comfortably taken care of." Have they a right to complain? Well means, well-being, happiness, the opposite of misery ; and misery is what the women feel, and yet they have no right to complain — they are said to act always of their own free will. But how about their children? What is more wretched than a sad childhood, than children who too early have learned to read the shadow side of life?

I once copied something from a speech by Prof. Max Miiller, the great German scholar who was so learned in Eastern tongues. It was almost as follows: "Polygamy, as it is practiced by the Eastern people is of benefit to women and girls, who could not live in their environment without a man to take care of them and to protect them."

Max Miiller is dead; we cannot call him here to show him the benefits of that custom.

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