Page:Walter Matthew Gallichan - Women under Polygamy (1914).djvu/87

 man, says: "Love in India, both as regards theory and practice, possesses an importance which it is impossible for us even to conceive." Quite so; the Western point of view is either prudish or prurient, usually a mixture of both.

There cannot be the least doubt, when sexual love is rightly appraised and respected as a part of the scheme of a divine ruler, or of beneficent Nature, that the relations of men and women are set upon a higher psychic level, than when passion is associated with uncleanness. Hindu culture recognised this in the earliest days. Chastity, purity, restraint, were inculcated, and periods of ascetic living were commended as beneficial discipline. But there was no shirking of the great vital questions of sex, and no abuse of processes designed by the gods.

Much of the conjugal serenity and happiness of the East is due to the heed devoted by husbands to an understanding of sex-love and the psychology of woman. Whether we approve polygamy, or denounce the practice, the truth remains that the men of the East are beloved by their wives, and that married discord is far less frequent than in the West. It is easy to attribute this fact to the subservience of women. We have seen that such subservience is far more apparent than actual. There is hardly a hint of it in the modern Hindu love-poetry.