Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/502

 412 EARLIER INDIAN SPEECHES

absence of education. Both are helping each other as they ought to do. If their lives are in any sense incom- plete, the cause can be traced to the incompleteness of the lives of the remaining fifteen per cent. If my sisters of the Bhagini Samaj will make a close study of the lives of these 85 per cent of our people, it will provide them ample material for an excellent pro- gramme of work for the Samaj.

MAN MADE SOCIAL LAWS.

In the obsevations that I am going to make, I will confine myself to the 15 per cent, abovementioned and even then it would be out of place to discuss the disabili- ties that are common both to men and women. The point for us to consider is the regeneration of our women relatively to our men. Legislation has been mostly the- handi-work of men ; and man has not always been fair and discriminate in performing that self-appointed task. The largest part of our effect in promoting the regeneration of women should be directed towards removing those blemishes which are represented in our Shastras as the necessary and ingrained charac- teristic of women. Who will attempt this and how f In my humble opinion in order to make the attempt, we will have to produce women pure, firm and self- controlled as Sita, Damayanti and Draupadi. If we do produce them such modern sisters will receive the same homage from Hindu society as is being paid to their prototypes of yore. Their words will have the same authority as the Shastras. We will feal ashamed of the stray reflections on them in our Smritis and will soon forget them. Such revolutions have occurred in Hinduism in the past and will still take place in the future, leading to the stability of our faith. I pra'y to

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