Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 349

KEEPING SEPARATE ESTABLISHMENTS
this
tropical
309
country and give them a strong impetus
towards libertinism.
In order to prevent the consequences of this precocious
sensuality, parents must hasten to marry their children
as early as possible.
Yet marriage under these circum-
stances does not always prove a very powerful restraint.
Nothing is more common than for a married man to keep
one or more concubines away from his home, in a separate
establishment, according as his pecuniary circumstances
permit.
This state of affairs is particularly common in
large towns, where it is so much easier to keep it a secret
from the legitimate wife, and thus avoid the domestic
quarrels and dissensions which are the natural consequences.
Nevertheless, even in the country, the jealousy of a wife
is rarely a hindrance to a husband's profligacy.
She may
try in vain to bring him back by remonstrances and threats
in vain she may leave her home and take refuge with her
parents.
Her faithless husband recalls her and maybe
swears to behave better in future. But she is soon deceived
again
She soon finds herself deserted once more and
finally she must perforce resign herself to seeing, hearing,
and suffering eveiything without making any further com-
;
!
;
plaint.
And
after
all, is it
surprising that libertinism
and
all its
consequences prevail in a country where the passions have
so many incentives and such ample opportunities of satis-
faction
Look at the crowd of widows in the prime of
life who are forbidden to remarry, and who are only too
ready to yield to the temptations by which they are assailed.
!
Modesty and virtue place no
restrictions
on them
;
their
that their misconduct may be found out. Con-
sequently, abortion is their invariable resource to prevent
such a contingency, and they practise it without the
slightest scruple or remorse.
There is not a woman amongst
them who does not know how to bring it about. This
odious crime, so revolting to all natural feeling, is of no
importance in the eyes of the Hindus. According to their
view, to destroy a being that has never seen the light is
a lesser evil than that a woman should be dishonoured.
The crimes of these unnatural mothers do not always,
however, go unpunished
many of them fall victims to
only fear
is
;