Page:Walter Matthew Gallichan - Women under Polygamy (1914).djvu/102

 beautiful maidens were selected, and brought to the palace under the misapprehension that they were all destined to share the great man's favour. Upon discovering their mistake, the girls broke into lamentations and displayed the utmost disappointment. Sivaji, being a chivalrous and kindly man, thereupon determined to marry the whole bevy of virgins.

An understanding of the Indian character is impossible unless we appreciate the great importance that eroticism plays in the life of the East. In England the average man, and the great mass of women, fear voluptuousness almost as they fear sin. Climate has some influence in this alleged indifference to sensual pleasure; but religion and tradition have probably a much weightier sway. We know perfectly well that almost every conceivable form of gross sensuality is practised among the Northern and the Western races. But we lift our eyes piously, and affect horror at legalised polygamy, a time-honoured religious form of marriage in the East, permitted by a noble reformer, the Prophet Mohammed, and by the great spiritual teachers of Hinduism.

Uncontrolled indulgence is without question disastrous to the individual and the race. Let us not, however, fall into the error of assuming that the Oriental attitude towards sex, with its frankness, and joyous acceptation of all that is good in the