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80 Manu are considered too sacred for women to utter, and even Ananta Shastri, with all his liberal views, could not go so far as to allow his wife to peruse the sacred texts.

As the years went on Lakshmibai became the mother of a son and two daughters, and shared with her husband the task of educating them. Although, as we have seen, Ananta Shastri held far more advanced views than the majority of his countrymen with regard to women, he was still an orthodox Hindu, and well content to comply with the social customs of his race. Accordingly, when his elder daughter, though still a mere child, was sought in marriage for a boy very little her senior, he consented, on condition that the boy bridegroom should be kept with him to be educated. To this the parents agreed, but no sooner were the marriage ceremonies concluded than they forgot their promise and took the boy back with them to their own home, where he grew up not only in ignorance but in vice and brutality as well. When the girl had developed into a beautiful and intelligent woman, the man returned to claim her as his wife. She refused to go with him and maintained her opposition till the case had been taken into court, and a verdict obtained, which, in accordance with the law of the country, condemned her to live with her husband. Sad, indeed, might have been her fate, tied for life to a man totally unworthy