Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 383

FEMININE ORNAMENTS
343
In fact, beads of all
of large gold beads, pearls, or coral.
kinds and of greater or less value are much in demand.
Some women wear necklaces more than an inch wide, set
with rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones. But to
enumerate all the different kinds of ornaments worn by
Hindu ladies would take a very long time. To give a single
instance, I could mention eighteen or twenty different kinds
of ornaments that are used for the ears alone.
Even the nose is considered a suitable object for decora-
tion.
The right nostril and the division between the two
nostrils are sometimes weighted with an ornament that
hangs down as far as the under lip. When the wearers
are at meals, they are obliged to hold up this pendant with
one hand, while feeding themselves with the other. At
first this strange ornament, which varies with different
castes, has a hideous effect in the eyes of Europeans, but
after a time, when one becomes accustomed to it, it gradu-
ally seems less unbecoming, and at last one ends by thinking
it quite an ornament to the face.
It is no uncommon sight to see a woman decked out in
all her jewels drawing water, grinding rice, cooking food,
and attending to all the menial domestic occupations, from
which even the wives of Brahmins do not consider them-
selves exempt.
It is, of course, needless to
gant display
remark that
all this
extrava-
very often obtained only at the sacrifice
of other more useful and necessary requirements in their
homes.
When a girl marries, everything that she receives from
her future father-in-law, or that she takes away with her
is
from her old home, is most clearly and distinctly set down,
item by item, in a kind of legal document. All these things
are her own personal property, which she takes care to
claim when she becomes a widow.
CHAPTER XVII
Rules of Conduct for Married
«
Nothing
Women.
serves so well to illustrate the attitude
and
behaviour of Hindus towards their wives as the rules of