Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/94

 princes' countries, the women would call that child's play. One finds there hardly a single man with but one wife. Among the nobility, especially in the circle surrounding the emperor, the men have usually twenty-six women.

Shall these conditions endure, Stella?

Our people have grown so accustomed to them, and moreover they see no other way in which every woman would be provided for. But in her heart almost every woman that I know curses this right of the man. But curses never help ; something must be done.

Come, women, girls, stand up; let us reach our hands to one another, and let us work together to change this unbearable situation.

Yes, Stella, I know it; in Europe, too, the state of morality among men is tragic. I say with you, teach the young men to turn their backs upon temptation and deplorable, half -acknowledged customs, and to feel disgraced at the existence of those short-sighted girls who follow men not ignorantly into the places where life is sordid. Yes certainly the young mothers could do most there, I have already maintained that to my sisters.

I should so love to have children, boys and girls to nourish and to form after my own heart. But above all things I should never follow the unhappy custom of putting boys before girls. We have no right to be surprised at the egoism of men when we consider how as children they are placed above the girls, their sisters. Even as a child a man is taught to despise girls. Have I not many times heard mothers say to their boys when they would fall and cry: "Fie, a boy cry just like a girl!"

I should teach my children, boys and girls, to regard one another as equal human beings and give them always the same education; of course following the natural disposition of each. —72—