Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 377

EDUCATION OF WOMEN
337
domestic degradation and servitude ? All that a Hindu
woman need know is how to grind and boil rice and look
after her household affairs, which are neither numerous
nor difficult to manage.
Courtesans, whose business in life is to dance in the
temples and at public ceremonies, and prostitutes are the
only women who are allowed to learn to read, sing, or
dance. It would be thought a disgrace to a respectable
woman to learn to read and even if she had learnt she
would be ashamed to own it. As for dancing, it is left
absolutely to courtesans
and even they never dance with
men. Respectable women sometimes amuse themselves
by singing when they are alone, looking after their house-
hold duties, and also on the occasions of weddings or other
family festivities
but they would never dare to sing in
;
;
;
public or before strangers.
Such feminine occupations as knitting or needlework
are quite unknown to them
and moreover any talents
that they might develop in this direction would be wasted,
as their clothing consists of one long piece of coloured
calico, without any join or seam in it, though most of them
know how to card and spin cotton, and very few houses
are without one or more spinning-wheels \
I have already described what takes place when a young
girl, who has been married in her early childhood, arrives
at the age when she is fit to live with her husband (Chapter
VI).
These festivities are called the consummation of the
marriage.
The young woman herself cannot appear, because she
is, for the first time in her life, in a state of uncleanness,
and for several days she is obliged to remain in a separate
part of the house.
But after she has gone through the
usual rites of purification she returns to the family, and
numberless other ceremonies are performed over her,
amongst others several which are supposed to counteract
the effects of witchcraft or the evil eye.
She is then con-
ducted with much pomp to her husband's house.
;
1
Many Hindu women and
girls now do needlework of some kind,
taught in most of the girls' schools. The old-fashioned mothers-
in-law complain that this new departure has proved detrimental to the
performance of the more ordinary household duties. Ed.
and
it is