Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/603

 THE GREEN BAG attached to a crime are none the less real to the Hindu because they are in the future life. The fact is, he trembles more at the thought of such punishment than he does at anything which could be inflicted upon him in his present existence. The average Hindu implicitly believes in every article of his religion. Unusually severe, then, are the rewards of perjury:" "The witness who speaks falsely shall be fast bound under water in the snaky cords of Varuna (the Lord of punishment) and be wholly deprived of power to escape torment during a hundred transmigrations; let man kind, therefore, give no false testimony. "Headlong, in utter darkness, shall the impious wretch tumble into hell, who, being interrogated in a judicial inquiry, answers one question falsely. "By speaking falsely in a cause concerning gold, he kills the born and the unborn; by speaking falsely concerning land be kills everything animated; beware then of speak ing falsely in a cause concerning land." The greatest crime known to Gentoo laws was the murder of a Brahman. Still, the person committing this offense was not the most sinful wretch in the world, for according to this paragraph, "He who describes himself to worthy men in a manner contrary to truth is the most sinful wretch in the world; he is the worst of thieves, a stealer of minds." But it remains for another part of the Code to yield even better curiosities. Let it be borne in mind that the compilers who, under Mr. Hastings' authority, gathered the laws of Menu, were the most learned men in India; that only one of them was below the age of thirty -five and that the majority approached eighty, while one exceeded that figure. It is essential to remember this, by way of apology for the observations they have selected and the censures they have passed on the conduct and merits of woman. The feminine question is no less eternal in our age than it was in Solomon's. What the wise men of India had to say, therefore,

may have an intrinsic value apart from the purpose for which it is here given. "A man, both day and night, must keep his wife so much in subjection, that she by no means be mistress of her own actions : if the wife have her own free will, notwith standing she be sprung from a superior caste, she will yet behave amiss. "If a man by confinement and threats cannot guard his wife, he shall give her a large sum of money, and make her mistress of her income and expenses and appoint her to dress victuals for the Deity." In the following one might easily imagine Solomon speaking: "A woman is never satisfied with man, no more than fire is satisfied with burning fuel, or the main ocean with receiving the rivers, or the empire of death with the dying of men and animals; in this case therefore a woman is not to be relied on. "Women have six qualities; the first, an inordinate desire for jewels and fine furni ture, handsome clothes and nice victuals; the second, immoderate lust; the third, violent anger; the fourth, deep resentment, i.e. no person knows the sentiments con cealed in their heart; the fifth, another person's good appears evil in their eyes; the sixth, they commit bad actions." It is consoling to find that centuries ago good advice was looked upon as something to be endured, and that henpecked husbands are not modern "A woman who always abuses her husband shall be treated with good advice for the space of one year; if she does not amend with one year's advice and does not leave off abusing her husband, he shall no longer hold any communication with her, nor keep her any longer near him, but shall provide her with food and clothes." Some of the things a woman was forbidden to do are : "A woman shall never go out of the house without the consent of her husband and shall always have some clothes on her bosom; she shall never hold discourse with a strange