Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/144



All the world over, and in India to an uncommon extent, woman is superior to man in morality. What we have to improve here is the moral condition, not of women, but of men. If there were no men with 'capering' hearts, the existence of 'dancing girls' would be an inconceivability. You should fasten the blame upon the demand, not upon the supply. It is the toddy-buyers that need to be reformed, not the toddy-sellers. In every instance of customary treatment, we, in course of time, virtually compel a class of persons to assume that position and play that part to which society has wantonly consigned them generation after generation. This habit is like that of a certain woman, made a queen by marriage, who could not relish the delicious dishes of a royal ban-