By a girl or by a young woman, or by a woman advanced in years, nothing must be done, even in her own dwelling place, according to her mere pleasure. (v. 147.)

She must always be distrusted and looked upon with suspicion as capable of doing any wrong, or as perhaps it would be more right to say, as incapable of doing anything right. A king is directed to let his females be well tried and attentive, their dress and ornaments having been examined, lest some weapon should be concealed in them. They are to do him humble service with fans, water, and perfume. (vii. 219.)

The husband is directed never to eat with his wife nor look at her eating (iv. 43); she must never even mention his name, and she must be in such absolute subjection that no amount of outrage upon her sense of propriety or affections is to be resented or cause estrangement.

Though inobservant of approved usages, or enamoured of another woman, or devoid of good qualities, yet a husband must constantly be revered as a god by a virtuous wife. (v. 154.)

A wife is to be considered as a mere maternal machine and domestic drudge; and this is, in brief, the light in which she is depicted by the sacred Lawgiver. Doubtless as long as human nature is what it is, there will be instances where man will be better than his creed and where women will rise to higher influence and status than those laid down for them; but the fact remains that it is thus decreed :

Let the husband keep his wife employed in the collection and expenditure of wealth, in purification and female duty in the preparation of daily food, and the superintendence of household utensils.

The production of children, the nurture of them when produced, and the daily superintendence of domestic affairs are peculiar to the wife. (ix. 11, 27.)

Thus is depicted the social status of woman in the former and better ages, as distinct from what it actually is in this Kaliyuga or degenerate age; and, as if this were not enough, her very soul is to be in subjection too, and that religious instinct which is a glory to womanhood is denied free expression, but must be bound in the chains of a cruel servitude.

Women have no business with the texts of the Veda; thus is the law fully settled: having therefore no evidence of law, and no knowledge of expiatory texts, sinful women must be as foul as falsehood itself; and this is a fixed rule. (ix. 18.)

We have said that cramped and confined though it may be, the better side of human nature will sometimes show itself; for no code devised of man can entirely eradicate the better promptings of the human heart. In Hindu story there are not wanting instances of a better appreciation of woman's qualities than the cast-iron codes would admit of. In his instructive book, Brahmanism and Hinduism, Sir Monier Williams gives the following translation of the definition of a wife as found in the Mahabhārata :

A wife is half the man, his truest friend;
A loving wife is a perpetual spring
Of virtue, pleasure, wealth; a faithful wife
Is his best aid in seeking heavenly bliss ;
A sweetly-speaking wife is a companion
In solitude, a father in advice,

A rest in passing through life's wilderness.

(p. 389)

There is also a most touchingly beautiful piece in the Ramayana to be found translated into English in Volume II. of Ward's book on the History of the Literature and Mythology of the Hindus. It purports to be the address of Sita to her husband Rāma. Rama was banished by the king, his father Dasaratha, at the instigation of his third wife Kaikeya, who wished the succession for her own son. He was doomed to perpetual exile in the forest, and his wife expresses her determination to go with him. As a

beautiful expression of tender affection I cannot refrain from quoting the piece at length. It serves to show that the affectionate nature of a true woman is ever the same, despite its surroundings.

Son of the venerable parent! hear,

'Tis Seeta speaks. Say art not thou assur'd
That to each being his allotted time
And portion, as his merit, are assign'd

And that a wife her husband's portion shares ?
Therefore with thee this forest lot I claim.
A woman's bliss is found, not in the smile
Of father, mother, friend, nor in herself:
Her husband is her only portion here,
Her heaven hereafter. If thou, indeed,
Depart this day into the forest drear,
I will precede, and smooth the thorny way.
O hero brave, as water we reject

In which our nutriment has been prepar'd,
So anger spurn, and every thought unkind,
Unworthy of thy spouse, and by thy side,
Unblam'd, and unforbidden, let her stay.
O chide me not; for where the husband is,
Within the palace, on the stately car,
Or wandering in the air, in every state
The shadow of his foot in her abode.
My mother and my father having left,
I have no dwelling-place distinct from thee.
Forbid me not. For in the wilderness,
Hard of access, renounc'd by men, and fill'd
With animals and birds of various kind,
And savage tigers, I will surely dwell.
This horrid wilderness shall be to me
Sweet as my father's house and all the noise
Of the three worlds shall never interrupt
My duty to my lord. A gay recluse,
On thee attending, happy shall I feel
Within this honey-scented grove to roam,

For thou e'en here canst nourish and protect;
And therefore other friend I cannot need.
To-day most surely with thee I will go,
And thus resolved, I must not be deny'd.
Roots and wild fruit shall be my constant food
Nor will I, near thee, add unto thy cares,
Nor lag behind, nor forest-food refuse;
But fearless traverse ev'ry hill and dale,
Viewing the winding stream, the craggy rock,
And, stagnant at its base, the pool or lake.
In nature's deepest myst'ries thou art skill'd,
O hero-and I long with thee to view

Those sheets of water, fill'd with nymphoas,
Cover'd with ducks, and swans, and silvan fowl,
And studded with each wild and beauteous flow'r,
In these secluded pools I'll often bathe,
And share with thee, O Rama, boundless joy.
Thus could I sweetly pass a thousand years;

But without thee e'en heav'n would lose its charms.
A residence in heaven, O Raghuvu,

Without thy presence, would no joy afford.
Therefore, though rough the path, I must, I will,
The forest penetrate, the wild abode

Of monkeys, elephants, and playful fawn.
Pleas'd to embrace thy feet, I will reside
In the rough forest as my father's house.
Void of all other wish, supremely thine,
Permit me this request-I will not grieve
I will not burden thee-refuse me not.

But shouldst thou, Raghuvu, this prayer deny,

Know, I resolve on death-if torn from thee. (p. 408.)

To come more directly to the subject of this chapter, there is great difficulty in arriving at anything like a clear knowledge of the Hindu woman's religion. Books to which I have access do not help one much, and the Hindus themselves have very confused and conflicting ideas on the subject. I have consulted with learned native friends and others likely to have the best information, and that which is given here is as clear as it seems to me possible in anything so conflicting and confusing as Hinduism generally is.

The main question is, whether a woman can have any worship at all apart from her husband; and the answer is that she may and she may not. From the passage at the head of this chapter it will be seen that, as a rule, the woman has no religious status apart from her husband, and yet, as will be seen further on, she has a daily worship of her own, of a kind. This may be merely an unauthorized form of concession to the religious instincts of woman-a sort of thing allowed on sufferance as doing no harm to any one, though it may perhaps be of little good! This may be the case, and perhaps it had its origin in some such notion, but the fact remains that in the present day the woman has a little divine service of her own.

At the time of her marriage, at the marriage of her children, and at certain other periods and at some festivals, the wife must sit with her husband during the time he is engaged in the performance of certain acts of worship, though she seems to be there only as a kind of complement of her busband, and takes no active part in the ceremonies. If a man has lost his wife, he cannot perform any sacrifices by fire (oupasana), which shows that the wife has some indirect connection with the ceremony, and also in part accounts for the anxiety of a widower to remarry. The woman is a part of her husband and so she worships through him; what he does, she does. The Yajur Veda says:

अर्धोवा एष आत्मनो यत्पत्ती ॥

The wife is half the self of her husband,

Upon this there is a comment by Brihaspati, somewhat as follows:

It has been said that the wife is half the self of her husband, and in consequence she shares equally with him all the good and evil done by him.

But the question still remains whether the woman can ordinarily join her husband in his prayers and sacrifices; and to this the answer must be in the negative. At the midday service when the man performs the ceremonies before taking food, as described in the paper on Nitya Karma, the wife may attend upon him and hand him the things used by him, but she can take no real part with him. The woman

is not a twice born (dvija); nor does she wear the sacred thread (yagnōpavita) which is the mark of the second birth (upanayana); she cannot read the Vedas, or even hear them read; nor can she take part in her husband's sacred services (dēvatārchana): she is outside it all; in reality she has no religious life in common with her husband.

It may be well just to go through the ordinary day with a woman and see what she really does, as far as