gether dispensed with, and the simple folds of the sari are made to serve all purposes, covering the person from head to foot. A married Hindu woman is supposed to have red kum kum marks on her forehead, and the Mahratta woman must have a nose-ring in addition. Without this a woman may be taken to be a widow. The Hindu woman is very careful about her hair. She dresses it with oil, and will on no account allow it to be trimmed or cropped, for that is a sign of widowhood. Another mark of a married Hindu woman is the particular kind of bracelets which only married women are allowed to wear. The highly decorated woman wears not only bracelets, nose-ring, a pair of earrings and a necklace, but has also pearls on her hair, half-a-dozen rings in the ears, rings on the fingers, silver anklets with tinkling beads over the feet, and silver toe-rings. The Hindu woman has no stockings or shoes, but recently shoes have come to be used by some women of the progressive classes.

Divested of all these decorations, and wearing a simple garment, is the creature known as the Hindu widow, who has been oftentimes described as a living picture of silent suffering. Her miseries are often exaggerated in pictures drawn by foreign writers on Hindu social life and customs; but it cannot be denied that the condition of the Hindu widow is anything but happy. When we speak of the Hindu widow we do not speak of the elderly matron with grown-up sons; her life is comfortable enough; and as mistress of the household she wields an authority which women in Europe never enjoy. We are speaking rather of young women who have been deprived of the sole means of their support by the death of their husbands. Custom forbids their marrying again, and they are left entirely dependent on the mercies of their mothers-in-law, who are seldom sympathetic, or of relations on whom they It must be remembered that respectprove a burden.

able Hindu women follow no independent calling, and, except among tradespeople and artisans, they are solely dependent on their husbands, fathers, or brothers for food and raiment. It follows, therefore, that when they become widows, they feel their helplessness and dependence on others if they have no sons able to support them, and they generally pass their lives in the relinquishment of worldly concerns and in devotion to religious pursuits.

There are different rules for widows in different parts of India. In some parts, as in the Deccan, she removes her hair, breaks her bangles and bracelets, and shuts herself up from all her male relations for a period of a year or more. In Bengal, however, the removal of the hair and the seclusion from male relations are unknown. In all parts of India, however, the lot of a Hindu childless widow is more or less a hard one; she dresses poorly, lives abstemiously, and keeps herself weddings and festivities. These remarks apply only to widows of the upper castes; among many of the lower castes Hindu widows are allowed to re-marry.

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The people of India get old much earlier than the people in colder climates. At fifty, a man or woman is considered old in India. At this age the fortunate Hindu woman is surrounded by children and grandchildren, who are always fond of the old lady of the house. The joint family system is usually kept up in Hindu homes, till the death of both of the parents. It is therefore usual to find an old woman or man at the head of every family. Still respected and venerated by the younger generations living conjointly with her, the old lady of the house is relieved of all active work except general superintendence, and often passes her hours in religious pursuits. Those of them who can read their vernacular are often found in the mornings engaged in perusing the Maha Bhârata, the Rámáyana, the Bhagavad Gita, or some such work. Ablutions, long

prayers and formal devotions, and various observances, often occupy most part of their time; and thus, according to the simple faith of their fathers and the instructions of priests, old Hindu women prepare themselves from day to day for the life to come, in which her Sastras teach her to believe.

The object of life in the West is quite different from that in the East. In the West, men live for temporal happiness, while in the East, life is looked upon as simply preparatory to a higher state of bliss hereafter. Hence it is that every act of daily life among the Hindus is intermixed with religion, and women are more devoted to religion than men. It is true the religion of the Hindu woman consists in various vows, practices, prayers, and observances, often requiring great self-abnegation and even endurance. She believes in various gods and goddesses, offers worship through priests in temples, makes pilgrimages to distant shrines. But for all this her faith is firm, and above all gods and goddesses she believes in the Great Bhagavan, the Ruler of the universe. The materialistic and agnostic theories which are slowly creeping into the minds of young educated men in India have not yet found acceptance amongst women; the Hindu woman is a sincere believer in her ancient faith.

Physically the Hindu woman is smaller than her sister in the West, and bigger than the woman of China and Japan. Her complexion is dark brown; it however varies in the different provinces. In Bengal and Madras women are darker than in Northern India, Gujrat, and the Deccan. The Punjab and Kashmere boast of tall, handsome, and beautiful women. The Hindu woman, as a rule, has beautiful dark eyes, luxuriant hair, and well-shaped limbs. Among the lower classes women are strong and able to do much hard work, such as fetching water from a distance of two or three miles,

drawing it from wells and tanks many feet deep, turning the flour-mill, or husking the rice. Among higher castes, however, Hindu women are not strong, and early marriage and early motherhood often bring on early old age and feebleness. In her domestic virtues the Hindu woman is a model for the whole world. She is a loving wife, mother, daughter, and sister. She is obedient, sympathetic, and charitable; she does not indulge in the habits of drinking or smoking; she is less given to the frivolities of life than her Western sister. If she receives due intellectual culture, the Hindu woman is an ideal woman.

For the rest, progress among Hindu women is only possible along the lines indicated by the conditions of their social life, and such progress is being effected. High education is confined to a very limited number of Hindu women in Bombay and Bengal; some elementary education is now common among all Hindu women of the upper classes. The remarriage of widows has been sanctioned by law, but is not yet popular. Polygamy is rare, and is dying out, even among those special classes among whom it was in vogue. Many theistic creeds, like those of the Brahina Samaj and the Arya Samaj, are directing the attention of all Hindus to the religion of one God; social progress goes hand in hand with these religious movements; and there has been perceptible progress and improvement in the general condition and status of Hindu women within the present century.

MOHAMEDAN WOMEN

BY MOHAMMAD BARAKATULLAH

NATIONS grow under the influence of particular environments, which really form their natural characteristics. The conceptions of good and evil, right and wrong, refined or vulgar manners, are to a certain extent conventional. Absolute goodness has never been in the possession of any single nation. Still every nation thinks that its social institutions and ethical canons-written or unwritten—are the best. Hence it is no wonder if European writers, who seldom have real insight into Muslim harems, present to the public a terrible picture of the state of woman in Islam. No one can claim that all Islamic institutions are perfect. But, on the other hand, to say that a Muslim harem is a pandemonium of misery, where women are caged, like wild beasts, to toil and be tortured, is an assertion no less imaginary than any freak of fiction. There is no doubt that the Mohamedan women do not have the pleasure of free intercourse with men, outside the family circle, as women do in western countries; yet their lot is far from being one of anxiety and misery. On the contrary, they enjoy themselves just as much as any women in the world can do. The means of acquiring happiness in different countries may be different, yet the end arrived at, in such cases, will be almost always the same. It is just like a family, whose members have different tastes, and pass their lives in various ways.