Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/494

484 We have mentioned the present dawn of a better day. It is but the dawn. Dr. Mullen's statistics tell us that already there are 39,647 women and girls receiving an education in the Zenana schools in India. The number is by this time larger, and still increasing, yet what are these among 100,000,000!

The question of caste has an immense influence in the marriage arrangement of the Hindoos, and its discriminations against women are particularly mean and insulting to her nature; while the compromises constantly occurring show how the cupidity of the legislators, and of the violators of the code, outrage the professed inflexibility of their own regulations.

For instance, the Institutes ordain: “Men of the twice-born classes, who, through weakness of intellect or irregularity, marry women of the lowest class, very soon degrade their families and progeny to the state of Sudras. A Brahmin, if he takes a Sudra as his first wife, sinks to the region of torment; if he have a child by her he loses even his priestly rank.”

In their absurd mythology, the deities and the souls of their ancestors are represented as suffering from hunger, which can only be appeased by human attention, the cooking and presentation of which is part of the wife's duty. The regular and frequent fulfillment of this service is considered to merit heaven. But these dainty deities and transmigrated folk are too fastidious to touch the offering, hungry though they be, unless proffered by high-caste hands. The result is, that the lady of low rank can never rise in India, while the favored few of high caste, with all their peculiar immunities, are sacredly reserved for themselves by these sacerdotal legislators.

The head of a family, a shade higher in caste, will not give his son in marriage to the daughter of a family a shade lower on equal terms. But he will do it on receiving a sum of money in proportion to the means of that family, the cash condoning the caste.

April and May are favorite months for the marriage ceremony among the Hindoos, though the rite takes place earlier in the year. But no father will have a marriage in his house during June, July,