Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/28

 The Indian Wife. things, continues our author, " are disgrace ful to a woman : ( I ) To drink wine and eat conserves, or any such inebriating things; (2) to keep company with a man of bad principles. (3) To remain separate from her husband. (4) To go to a stranger's house without good cause. (5) To sleep in the day time. (6) To remain in a stranger's house." (Gcntoo Laws, pp. 285, 286.) Due provision was made for the punish ment of wives who did not conform to the law of their land; in many cases the punish ment was corrective; in others, to impress others. A woman who always abused her husband was treated with good advice for the space of one year, if she did not amend in that time, but still continued abusing him, he was no longer to hold any communica tion with her, nor keep her near him, but he still had to provide her with food and clothing. (What would the American woman who got a divorce because her hus band quoted to her verses from the New Testament, about wives obeying husbands, say to a year of advice; or what the Ameri can man who got his divorce because his wife struck him with her bustle think of standing abuse for a year?) A woman who dissipated her own property, or who entertained the idea of murdering her hus band, and the woman always quarrelling with everybody, and the woman who ate before her husband did so, were women who should be turned out of house and home. A wife might be turned away, if, following her own inclinations, she went withersoever she chose, disregarding the words of her husband. Manu said that a wife given to

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intoxicating liquors or having bad morals, or given to contradicting her husband, or attacked with incurable disease, or who wasted his money, ought to be replaced by another. If no children were born, a wife could be replaced by another in the eighth year; if none of the children lived, the hus band might take another wife in the tenth year; if only daughters were born a new wife might be taken in the eleventh year, but if the wife spake with bitterness to her husband she might be replaced instantly. If while the husband was sick the wife neglected to attend to him, his only remedy was that he can refuse to speak to her for three months, and he could take back what ever presents he had given her; after this he must be reconciled to her, he could not part with her. It is clear that a man might scourge a wife, who had committed a fault, with a lash, or a bamboo twig, upon any part of the body where no dangerous hurt is likely to happen.. (Gentoo Laws, pp. 284, 285, 235: Code of Manu, ch. ix : Ayeen Akbery, vol. ii, p. 507. If Laban had been under the jurisdiction of the Emperor Akber he could not safely have played the trick upon Jacob of giving him Leah for Rachel. Had he attempted that he would forthwith have been compelled to hand over the well-beloved Rachel as well. If a Hindu discovered any natural defect upon his wife immediately after mar riage, he had a right to part with her at once, and the father of the woman was fined for his deceit in not making the blem ish known. This reminds us of Heliogabalus divorcing his spouse because he discovered a mole on her body.

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