Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 271

THE HINDU IDEA OF WOMEN
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home with her parents, who keep her shut
such time as she shall be able to fulfil all the duties
This also is another occasion for festivities.
of a wife.
There is the same gathering of friends and relatives, and
almost the same ceremonies, with a few exceptions, that
took place at the first wedding. The father and mother
of the bridegroom, on being informed that their daughter-
in-law has arrived at an age when the marriage can be
consummated, go and fetch her, and conduct her home
in triumph.
And in order that she may become accus-
tomed by degrees to married life, her own parents come at
the end of a month and take her back to her own home,
and for the first few years, or until she has children, she
lives alternately in her parents' and in her husband's house.
These mutual arrangements are at first a proof of the
happy understanding existing between the two families.
But unfortunately this harmony rarely lasts long, for very
soon, finding herself ill-treated and even beaten by her
husband, and tormented in a thousand ways by an exact-
ing mother-in-law who treats her like a slave and vents upon
her all her whims and ill-temper, the poor young wife is
forced to a surreptitious flight, seeking shelter and pro-
Then, relying on promises
tection under her father's roof.
of better treatment in future, she consents to resume her
fetters
but fresh outrages soon force her to escape again.
In the end, resigning herself to the inevitable, or for the
sake of her children, she gives up the struggle, and meekly
bows to marital authority. A real union with sincere and
mutual affection, or even peace, is very rare in Hindu
households. The moral gulf which exists in this country
between the sexes is so great that in the eyes of a native
the woman is simply a passive object who must be abjectly
submissive to her husband's will and fancy. She is never
looked upon as a companion who can share her husband's
thoughts and be the first object of his care and affection.
The Hindu wife finds in her husband only a proud and
overbearing master who regards her as a fortunate woman
to be allowed the honour of sharing his bed and board.
If there are some few women who are happy and beloved
by those to whom they have been blindly chained by their
the bride returns
up
till
;
family, this good fortune must be attributed to the naturally