India's Problem, Krishna or Christ Part 9

Herein must lie the best means for a speedy coming of the Kingdom of Christ in India.

Chapter V.

THE WOMEN OF INDIA.

The condition of its women is the truest test of a people's civilization.

Her status is her country's barometer.

The one hundred million women of India admirably reflect the whole social and religious condition of that land. There are more nations in India than are found in all Europe; they also present a greater diversity of type.

Between the aboriginal tribes which treat the weaker s.e.x only as a beast of burden, and the Pa.r.s.ee community which holds its women in the highest consideration and furnishes them with a liberal education and large opportunity, there are many intermediate tribes and nations which regard their women with varying degrees of consideration and of contempt.

Of all Scriptures the Zend Avesta of the Pa.r.s.ees is the only one which furnishes woman, from the beginning, with absolute equality with man; and that position she has never lost among the Pa.r.s.ees. But the Pa.r.s.ees in India are a mere handful.

The Hindu woman const.i.tutes four-fifths of the total number of her s.e.x in India; and her condition is fairly uniform everywhere and conforms, in varying degrees, to a type whose characteristics are easily recognized.

She has come down from earliest history. We recognize her everywhere in the pages of their ancient literature, in their laws and legends; and we behold her in all the manifold walks of modern life. For nearly a quarter of a century the writer has lived as her neighbour, gazed daily upon her life, wondered at and admired her many n.o.ble traits which have been preserved under the most adverse circ.u.mstances, and grieved over her weakness and her many disabilities.

In ancient times, the position of woman in India was one of power coupled with honour. Today the power remains, but the honour has been largely eliminated.

1. In ancient Vedic times woman enjoyed many distinctions and revealed great apt.i.tude. She joined her husband in the offering of domestic sacrifices and sat as queen in the home. Some of the sacred hymns of the Rigveda were made by her and have come down these thirty centuries as a beautiful testimony to her intellectual brightness and aspiration, and as an evidence of the honour in which she was held.

Five centuries later this beautiful description was given of her in the Mahabarata:

"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 sweet speaking wife is a companion In solitude, a father in advice, A mother in all seasons of distress, A rest in pa.s.sing through life's wilderness."

The rights and opportunities of woman are strikingly ill.u.s.trated by many of the legends of their ancient epics. For instance, we read of the _Svayamvara_ of the lovely princess Draupadi. It was the occasion when she had attained womanhood and was ent.i.tled to the right to choose her own husband. How graphically are the royal suitors described as they press their claims to her heart and hand in knightly tournament. It is one of those scenes which reveal woman in the possession of some of her most queenly rights and attractions.

The ancient ideals of womanly character have come down the centuries writ large in their songs and annals; and these ideals are today held as dearly, and are loved and sung with as much ardour, as at any time in the history of India.

Every boy and girl of that land, today, knows the lovely Sita, wife of the n.o.ble and heroic Rama,-how, while in the power of the terrible Ravana, and at risk of life, she withstood every temptation and lived in unspotted purity and in supreme devotion and faithfulness to her royal lord.

Who does not know of the faithful Saguntala, whose legend is woven into one of the most beautiful and touching love stories the world has ever known. This drama was the first translation from Sanskrit into the English tongue and elicited the astonishment and lively admiration of such a man as Goethe.

India has always boasted of the constancy and devotion of the beautiful Savitri to her beloved Sattyavan. After the death of her husband, she followed his soul into the spirit-world with fearless devotion and pleaded with the King of Death with so much pa.s.sion and persistence for his return to life that he was finally restored to her in youthful vigour.

These are some of the stock ill.u.s.trations of the model wife used everywhere and at all times in India. And they have had an extensive and wonderful influence in the molding of wifely ideals.

It is, as we see, a glorification of devotion, faithfulness, constancy-traits that have always beautified the character of the Hindu woman. It is true that, apart from her husband and from the kitchen, woman has had few ideals urged upon her in that great country. Her ambitions have not crossed the doorsteps of her house and home. She is measured entirely by her relation to her husband or children. She is her lord's companion and servant. Love to him is the wand which alone can transform her life into gold. Her usefulness and her glory are the reflections of his pleasure and of his satisfaction in her. She has no separate existence. Apart from man, she is an absolute nonent.i.ty. And yet, within the sphere which has been granted to her, she has shone with a wonderful radiance and with a charm which reminds us often of some of Shakespeare's beautiful womanly creations.

The physical attractions of woman have always, of course, captivated the sterner s.e.x in India, as in other lands. Her beauty is lavishly described and painted in warm colours through all Hindu literature. And she _is_ physically beautiful; she will compare favourably with the fair ones of any land in womanly grace, in beauty of figure, and in bewitching charm of manner.

But the standard of womanly grace and beauty is not precisely the same there as it is with us in the West. A Hindu and an American have different ideals of personal beauty. Though the Aryan type of countenance may not largely differ East and West, there are touches of expression and shades of beauty which correspond respectively to the different ideals in both lands. May they not have created the ideals themselves?

The most common results of a Hindu woman's toilet are the smooth hair, the blackened eyebrow, the reddened finger-nails, the pendent nose jewels, the bulky ear-rings, the heavy bangles for ankles and arms. Without these, life, to the Hindu belle, is not worth living. On wedding occasions, among the common folk, red ochre is also daubed over the throat in ghastly suggestion to the Westerner; but in glorious attractiveness to the native of the land!

West and East a.s.sociate a fair complexion with highest beauty. A fond Hindu mother once came to the writer moaning that she could not find a husband for her daughter because she was "too black!" The young man of India puts a premium upon every shade of added lightness of complexion.

His taste is reflected in the universal feminine custom of using saffron dye to lighten the complexion upon all festive occasions.

The clothing of the woman of India is exceedingly attractive. Her pretty garb sets off admirably the beauty of her person; and, both in inexpensiveness and grace, and in its contribution to health, is far better than the complicated extravagance, the heavy enc.u.mbrance and the insanitary tight-lacing of the West. The women of South India dress with a view to comfort in the tropics; but they have also, in a most remarkable degree, conserved appropriateness, beauty, and simplicity in their robes.

The possibilities of the one cloth, which is the full dress of the South Indian woman, as a modest garment and as a charming full-dress equipment would be a revelation to the much dressed votary of the West. In the arranging of this cloth there is considerable scope for ingenuity and for aesthetic taste; although, in this matter, the rules of each caste furnish an iron etiquette which must be followed by the women. Indeed, the tyranny of Worth in the West is nothing as compared with caste tyranny as the Fas.h.i.+oner of the East. This is accounted for by the fact that a woman's dress must be arranged in such a way as to publish abroad her caste affiliations.

Woman has a vast influence upon the life of the people of India. In no other country has she relatively exercised more power. All this, notwithstanding the fact that, for more than twenty centuries, she has had no recognized position in religion or in society. Her spiritual destiny has been entirely in the hands of man. By the highest authorities her salvation has been made entirely dependent upon her connection with him.

She has absolutely no right of wors.h.i.+p of her own. From the cradle to the grave she is in man's keeping. Until she is married, supreme obedience to her father is her only safety; while her husband lives, heaven's blessings can come to her only through his favour and prayer; and, after his death, her sons become her lords and the sole guardians and protectors of her spiritual interests. All this is everywhere recognized by Hindu society, and by none more than by the woman herself.

And yet, it is equally true, and a fact of remarkable significance, that, in India today, the religious influence of woman is paramount. She is the stronghold of Hinduism at the beginning of this twentieth century. Man, under the growing influence of western thought, civilization, and faith, has largely lost his moorings and is growing increasingly insincere and a trifler with religious beliefs and inst.i.tutions. The woman, on the other hand, is a conservative of the conservatives. In her superst.i.tion she is deeply sincere; her faith has no questionings, and her piety shapes her every activity. Were it not for the women of India, Hinduism, with all its vaunted philosophy, its wonderful ritual and its mighty caste tyranny, would, within a decade, fall into "innocuous desuetude."

It is a significant fact that in the religion of no other people on earth does the wors.h.i.+p of the female find so prominent a place. In many parts of the land _Sakti_ wors.h.i.+p, or the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.ddesses, is widely prevalent and almost paramount in influence. It is really the wors.h.i.+p of power under a female form; and the power which these G.o.ddesses exercise is mostly malevolent in its character. The terrible wife of Siva, in all her dread manifestations, is the most popular deity, because the most feared in the land.

It is natural to inquire whether this characteristic of the Hindu pantheon is not a reflection of the Hindu mind as to the influence of woman, and as to the belief of man in the evil character of that influence. As is the place and power of woman among the men so is the character and place of the G.o.ddesses in the pantheon of that people.

The famous religious reformer Chunder Sen, though he adopted and used the Lord's Prayer, changed the form of address from the masculine to the feminine and said, "Our Mother who art in heaven!" The adoration of the female in Hindu wors.h.i.+p was never more marked than at present. What has Christianity to meet this bent of the Hindu mind? Or should it be discouraged as an element in wors.h.i.+p? The Romanists meet it by exalting and giving preeminence to the Virgin Mother. The Protestants have nothing corresponding to this.

Socially, the Hindu woman is a reactionary of the most p.r.o.nounced type; she opposes social reform at all points-nowhere more than when it is directed to ameliorate her own condition. Religiously, as we have seen, she is the slave of man by law and teaching; yet she rules her household, even in these matters, with an iron hand.

From her throne in the home she so wields her sceptre that it is felt also throughout the whole social fabric. Her beloved lord has perhaps pa.s.sed through a university course, is a p.r.o.nounced social reformer and discourses in eloquent English, before large audiences of his admiring countrymen, concerning the mighty social evils which are the curse of the country; he, with his ardent fellow-reformers, frames rules which shall soon usher in the millennium of social reform and progress! And then he-this man of culture, of eloquence, of n.o.ble purposes and of altruistic ambitions-goes to his home and meekly submits to the grandmotherly tyranny which has shaped his life much more than he knows, and which vitiates and renders nugatory all his social and other schemes! As man has narrowed the scope of woman's life in that land, so she has given it intensity of power.

And what is more significant, she has become supremely contented with the narrow sphere which man has grudgingly given her. And, for this very reason, she combats every endeavour, on the part of her friends, to release her from her bondage and to increase her opportunities and blessings in life. The old triple slander perpetrated upon India, to the effect that "it is a country in which the women never laugh, the birds never sing and the flowers have no fragrance," is a falsehood in all its details. Hindu women have as merry a laugh as their sisters in any other land. They have learned to make the best of their lot and to rejoice in it.

Since the time of the Mohammedan conquest, and probably long before, the higher cla.s.s of women have mostly led a life of seclusion. This is preeminently true of the northern parts of the country where Mohammedan influence was strongest and the Hindu had carefully to protect his wife and daughters from the coa.r.s.e Mussulman. In South India this seclusion is very rare and observed only among the most aristocratic. The common woman of India finds ample freedom of intercourse in her town and village, and figures conspicuously at the great religious festivals of her land.

Generally speaking, woman is the redeeming feature of India. She is the ideal home-keeper and housekeeper. Usually, she is devoted to her husband, a pa.s.sionate lover of her children, the conserver of society, the true devotee in religion. Her lord and husband has been taught, from time immemorial, to keep her in obscurity and to surround her with the screen of ignorance and narrow sympathies; but she has magnified the work a.s.signed to her; her excellence has shown far beyond his; and, in her bondage, she has built her throne from which she has wielded her sceptre of love and goodness over him.

She has never aspired to realms not granted to her by her lawgivers. The modern aspiration of the "new woman" of the West does not appeal to her.

She asks only to be let alone in her narrow but, to her, all-sufficient sphere.

2. But, after all we have said, or can say, of the power of woman in India, it still remains that, in no other land, has she suffered such marked disability and deeper injustice. If her goodness has shone out of her darkness, it has only served to reveal the more the sadness of her position. She bears in her condition the signs of her bondage and humiliation. The evils of the land have been attributed to her; and man too often ascribes his own degradation and sin to the curse breathed upon him by woman.

The proverbs of a country are the truest test of its sentiments. What have these to say of the woman of India today?

"What poison is that which appears like nectar? Woman."

"What is the chief gate to h.e.l.l? Woman."

"What is cruel? The heart of a viper. What is more cruel? The heart of a woman. What is the most cruel of all? The heart of a soulless, penniless widow."

"He is a fool who considers his wife as his friend."

"Educating a woman is like putting a knife in the hands of a monkey."

These are a few of the many proverbs which characterize woman in one vernacular only. Every other Indian tongue equally abounds in proverbial expressions which brand a woman as one of the greatest evils of the land.

Sanskrit writers have exhausted vituperative language in describing woman.

They represent her as "wily, hypocritical, lying, deceptive, artful, fickle, freakish, vindictive, vicious, lazy, vain, dissolute, hard-hearted, sinful, petty-minded, jealous, addicted to simulation and dissimulation. She is worse than the worst of animals, more poisonous than the poison of vipers."

These proverbs do not necessarily reveal the depravity of the Hindu woman; but they do testify unmistakably to the estimation in which she is held by man.