Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/498

488 after these long ages of helpless woman's subordination and suffering.

She waits upon her lord, who is “her god, her guru, and her religion,” as the Shaster phrases it. She lulls him to rest by the soft shampooing of his feet, and is at once his slave and stewardess. Her worth is well summed up by one of their poets, who describes the best condition she can know, when her bereaved husband thus laments her:

Yet while living she might not walk by his side, even in the marriage procession; she may not even call him by his name nor directly address him; nor can a friend so far notice her existence as to inquire for her welfare, for the Sacontala lays it down as a rule of social life that “it is against good manners to inquire concerning the wife of another man.” The face of any man, save her husband and father, and her own and husband's brothers, she must never see, at the risk of compromising her character. So inveterate is the prejudice occasioned by their education that many of the women of India have sacrificed their lives sooner than violate the rule. The writer heard of a case which sadly illustrates this. In the detachment which Major Broadfoot had to take from Lodiana to Cabul in 1841 there were wives of many native officers, and the Major, in the performance of his troublesome duty, had them each provided for their long journey with a howdah fixed on a camel's back. During the march one of these came to the ground suddenly, and there was a general halt, for the native lady had got entangled in the frame-work and had swung around beneath. An English officer, seeing her danger, sprang from his horse to rescue