Page:Sketches of some distinguished Indian women.djvu/14

2 men and women, this sympathy and interest have found expression in many well-directed efforts to extend to the women of India the blessings of civilization and of education, and to secure for them at least a share of that liberty and honourable respect, which we are accustomed to consider as among the most valuable and incontestable "rights of women."

As the evils from which Indian women suffer are very various in character, so are and must be the efforts to meet and remedy them, and it may be well to glance briefly at the principal of them.

The first great blow struck in the cause of woman's welfare was the famous edict issued by Lord William Bentinck in 1829, after long and bitter opposition on the part of many members of his Government, though loyally supported by two or three, whereby the practice of "suttee" was prohibited throughout the British provinces, and the aiding or abetting of it was branded as a crime to be punished by death.

The practice of suttee, that is, the burning alive of widows on their husbands' funeral pile, was of great antiquity in India, although when and how it was introduced seems to be doubtful. It is certain that it is not sanctioned either by the Vedas, which are the most ancient of the Hindu Scriptures, nor by the Code of Manu, which contains the most precise