Assuredly the Bengalees are a race ofkeraneesor writers, as Napoleon said the English were a nation of shopkeepers. Every morning and evening, almost all the main streets of Calcutta leading to the English quarter—bright prospect for the Tramway—are literally thronged with dense crowds of keranees in their white cloth uniform, busily making for their respective offices, either in shabby looking third class hackney carriages or on foot. A foreigner not used to such sights cannot fail almost unconsciously to come to a conclusion that the Bengalees are a nation of keranees.Every Government, Railway or Merchant's office, is filled with these Baboos, either actually employed or serving on probation, biding their time in fond expectation of picking up a slice of official bread, buttered or unbuttered. Even graduates of the Calcutta University do not hesitate to serve as apprentices, because a collegiate course does not teach the rules of bureaucracy or official routine. Most of them are good copyists or clever accountants, while a few are correspondence clerks. As a rule, their pay is very small compared with what is given to English Clerks, for reasons which I need not dilate upon here.
Within the range of our experience, extending over fifty years, we remember only one Native gentleman—Baboo Shama Churn Dey, the present vice-chairman of the Calcutta Municipality—who, by his tried ability, intelligence and integrity has managed to climb to the top of keraneedom. In recognition of his high efficiency his salary has been raised to one thousand Rupees a month, in spite of many instances of supersession. I, in common with others, am fully persuaded that had he been a British-born Civilian, he would undoubtedly have drawn a much larger salary. But it is useless to repine at a misfortune which is inevitable.
Even the amusements of a Bengalee Baboo are more or less anglicised. Instead of the traditionalJattras, (representations) andCobees(popular ballads) he has gradually imbibed a taste for theatrical performances, and native musical instruments are superseded by European flutes, concertinas and harmoniums, organs and piano-fortes. This is certainly a decided improvement on the old antiquated system, demonstrating the slow growth of a refined taste. Thus we see in almost every phase of life, at home or outside, the Bengalee Baboo is Europeanized. In his style of living, in his mode of dress, in his writings, in his public and privateutterances, in his household arrangements and furniture, in his bearing and department, in his social intercourse, in his mental accomplishments, and in fact, in his passionate partiality for Western æsthetics, he is a modified Anglo-Indian. But it were devoutly to be wished that he possessed a larger admixture of the essential elements of European truthfulness of character, energy and manliness of spirit, straightforwardness in his dealings with society, nobility of sentiment, magnanimity combined with simplicity, disinterested love and sympathy, and above all, moral and spiritual elevation.
Notwithstanding the rapid progress of medical science throughout the country since the establishment of the Calcutta Medical College, it is an undeniable fact that the practice of HindooKobirajesand Mussulmanhakimsstill continues to find favour in the eyes of a large section of the Indian population. In Chemistry, Anatomy, Midwifery and Surgery, the decided superiority of the English over the Native system, is admitted by all. This is unquestionably an age of improvement; everything around us indicates the progressive development of arts and sciences, and a society that does not keep pace with the onward march of intellect is certainly much behind the age.
There was a time when upwards of sixteen original medical writers, some of whose works are still extant, flourished in India, and medicines prepared according to the formulas of theAyurveda—the best standard medical work—were supposed to have produced wholesome results, affording no inconsiderable amount of relief to thousands afflicted with diseases of various kinds, and even of a most malignant character. Under the Hindoo dynasty, every encouragement was given to the cultivation and improvement of medical science. Next to the Brahmins, the Vidya class was respected, though sometimes they are unjustly twitted with what is called a hybrid origin. It is, however, foreign to our purpose to determine this point, which seems to be enveloped in obscurity. The common theory on which the Hindoo system of physic is based, has reference to the country, the season and the age of the patient, to which is superadded the course of regimen suited to his physical organisation. The scientificand philosophical theory is that there are certain defined elements in the human body on the natural equilibrium of which mainly depends the health of man. The disturbance of this normal equilibrium, either by the increase or decrease of the essential ingredients, deranges the system and requires the use of medicines generally obtained from several kinds of indigenous drugs, bark, root, wood, fruits, flowers, metals, &c.
From the existing medical works according to which medicines are prepared and cures effected, it is evident that the Hindoo system is not entirely destitute of science, but the light it is capable of diffusing is greatly dimmed by a combination of unfavourable circumstances brought about by the overthrow of the Hindoo dynasty, the decay of learning in every branch of human knowledge, and the consequent growth and progress of empiricism.
In his eleventh discourse before the Asiatic Society, that distinguished orientalist, Sir William Jones, has said "Physic appears in these regions to have been from time immemorial as we see it practised at this day by the Hindoos and Mussulmans, a mere empirical history of diseases and medicines." This is presumably a remark applicable to a society but little removed from a state of barbarism, but the existence of such scientific works asAyurveda,Nidan,Churruck-Swasru,Sarasungraha,Boidya,Sarvuswn, &c., furnishes abundant proof that the Hindoo system of physic is not altogether founded on empiricism.
In 1838 the Honorable the East India Company appointed a Committee, consisting of Drs. Jackson, Rankin Bramby, Pearson, W. B. O'Shaughnessy and Mr. James Prinsep, to examine and report upon the state of the Honorable Company's Dispensaries, and the possibility of substituting native drugs for European medicines, the primary object being twofold, namely cheapness and efficacy. Death, ill health andthe casualties of the service dispersed the Committee long before the members could accomplish the task imposed on them, and subsequently the whole charge devolved upon Dr. W. B. O'Shaughnessy, who, after the unwearied labour of four years, assisted by some of the best Native physicians, produced a work entitled "The Bengal Dispensary" published under the authority of the Government of India, which still remains a valuable monument of his indomitable zeal and untiring devotion to medical science.
Great attention has also been given to the scientific analysis of the various indigenous drugs by Roxburgh, Wallick, Ainslie, White, Arson, Royle, Pereira, Lindlay, Richard, &c., &c. The result of their analytical examination, though not so exhaustive as the very great importance of the subject required, was nevertheless very favourable to the opinion that the native system was based on fixed scientific principles, and that many of the drugs possessed great curative properties. Unfortunately the improved principles and important discoveries of modern Europe have not been sufficiently brought to bear on the simultaneous development of the native system. They have, however, proved greatly beneficial in teaching the nativekobirajesto adopt, to a certain extent, the European method and regime.
It is a remarkable fact that even now, when this science may be said to be in a retrogressive stage both for want of adequate culture as well as of sufficient encouragement, there are a few Hindookobirajes[99]in this City, and in other parts of the country, whose treatment in chronic cases of fever, dysentery, diarrhœa, phthisis, pulmonary consumption, asthma, &c., proves, in a great measure, successful. Hencein almost every respectable Hindoo family there is a competentkobiraj, who is always consulted in cases of a serious nature. It is generally considered that on the subject of pulsation greater weight is attached to the opinion of a Hindookobirajthan to that of an English doctor. By the pulse, in the different parts of our physical organisation, the state of the body may be ascertained and suitable remedies applied. In cases of severe indisposition among the Hindoos, the friends of a patient have not only to contend against the struggle between life and death, but to closely watch the last expiring flicker of vitality that he may be removed in time to the banks of the sacred stream for insuring his entrance into heaven.
It has been urged by some native physicians that the Sanskrit work,Ayurveda, above-mentioned, treats of anatomy and of the doctrine of the circulation of the blood. If this be true, great credit is doubtless due to its author for having made in a comparatively dark age such considerable advances in an important branch of medical science, without which medicine and surgery are of little avail. Chemistry, which enables us to distinguish the real properties of different substances, was certainly not unknown to the Hindoo physicians, because their medicines indicate a scientific selection of several ingredients mixed together to produce a certain result. But it can by no means be asserted that the people ever attained to a thorough knowledge, either in the one or the other, which can bear comparison with the perfection of the modern European system. In almost every department of human knowledge steady progress is the grand characteristic of the age, but in this country unhappily a spirit of scientific investigation has very nearly been extinguished simply for want of adequate cultivation and support.
If empirics abound in enlightened Christendom, where chemical analysis, scientific researches in materia medica andpharmacy, and anatomical demonstration and surgical operations almost daily bring to light new discoveries and inventions, what can be expected in a country where medical science has long since been in a state of absolute stagnation. Ignorant and unprincipled quacks, quite unacquainted with the rules of the Hindoo medical shastras, abound all over the country, which has for some years past been severely suffering from malarious fever of a virulent type, carrying death and devastation wherever it prevails.[100]They literally sport with the health of their patients, and the natural consequence is, hundreds and thousands of human beings are mercilessly sacrificed to their ignorance and cupidity. Not one in a hundred of those who call themselveskobirajesis acquainted with the principles of physic as laid down in the standard medical works of the Hindoos. Some of them have a few nostrums of their own, the composition of which is unknown to every one but themselves.
A Bengaleekobirajcarries a miniature dispensary about him. He takes with him a small packet, containing different kinds of pills or powders, wrapped up in a piece of paper, in small doses which are commonly used twice a day with ginger, honey, betel, roots of doov-grass, &c. He seldom uses phials; liquids, when required, are made in a patient's own house. His medicines are chiefly made of drugs, but he has neither a proper classification of them, nor a complete system of botany. He uses, however, certain preparations of oil, which are sometimes beneficially administered in chroniccases. These preparations are rather expensive, selling from two to ten Rupees per pound. The popularity of some of thesekobirajesstands very high in Native public estimation. Almost every wealthy family in the interior as well as in the Town has its own physician. The fee of a quack in the villages is one Rupee on the first day of his visit, and he continues to attend twice daily until the patient recovers. When completely recovered, the physician gets one or two Rupees more, a suit of clothes and some provisions.
The introduction of English medicines into the interior, though not scientifically administered in every case, has very considerably affected the trade of the native quacks. Their occupation, it may be said, is nearly gone, because the doctors of the Bengalee class, more systematically trained under the auspices of the Government Vernacular Colleges, have, in a manner, superseded them. In strong fevers, instead of compelling the patient to fast for twenty-one days or longer, and restricting his regimen to parched rice, the Bengalee class doctor first reduces him by evacuations,[101]and then gives him either fever mixture, or cinchona febrifuge, or quininemixture as he thinks best. In place of warm applications—the quondam regimen of a kobiraj in strong fevers—he gives ice or cold water, thus relieving the patient from the effects of a merciless abstinence and excessive thirst. On the periodical return of the unhealthy season in Bengal,i. e., in the months of September, October, November and December, when the atmosphere is surcharged with a large quantity of vapour, these doctors generally reap a harvest of gain from their practice. It should be mentioned, however, that their imperfect knowledge and want of sufficient experience, are too often attended with the most disastrous results.
The condition of a Hindoo female, partially described in the preceding pages, is usually deplorable. The changes and vicissitudes to which her chequered life is subject are manifold. From the day she is ushered into the world to her dissolution, she is surrounded by adventitious circumstances, which, from the peculiar constitution of the society in which her life is cast, contain a larger admixture of misery than of happiness. Weak and frail as she assuredly is made by nature, the conventional forms and social usages to which she is religiously enjoined to adhere alike tend to deprive her of temporal and spiritual happiness. Born under unfavorable circumstances chiefly by reason of her sex, her life is rendered doubly miserable by the galling chains of ignorance and superstition. "Accursed the day when a woman child was born to me," was the emphatic exclamation of a Rajpoot when a female birth was announced. "The same motive," says Colonel Tod, "which studded Europe with convents, in which youth and beauty were immured until liberated by death, first prompted the Rajpoot to infanticide: and, however revolting the policy, it is perhaps kindness compared to incarceration. There can be no doubt that monastic seclusion, practised by the Frisians in France, the Langobardi in Italy and the Visigoths in Spain, was brought from Central Asia, the cradle of the Goths.[102]It is in fact a modification of the same feeling, whichcharacterizes the Rajpoot and the ancient German warrior,—the dread of dishonor to the fair: the former raises the poniard to the breast of his wife rather than witness her captivity, and he gives opiate to the infant, whom, if he cannot portion and marry to her equal, he dare not see degraded." Descending from the lofty ideal of a chivalrous Rajpoot character to the more familiar portraiture of tame Hindoo life in Bengal, we find the same sad destiny is the portion of a female in both cases. "When a female is born no anxious inquiries await the mother—no greetings welcome the new comer, who appears an intruder on the scene, which often closes in the hour of its birth. But the very silence with which a female birth is accompanied forcibly expresses sorrow." In almost every stage of life, from infancy to old age, her existence presents a uniform picture of gloominess, uncertainty, despondency, and neglect. Freedom of thought and independence of action—the natural birthrights of a rational being—are denied her not by her Creator but by a selfish, narrow-minded and crafty priesthood. She is treated and disposed of as if she were entirely destitute of the feelings and ideas of a sentient being. She dare not emerge from the unhealthy seclusion of the closely confinedandarmahal, or female department, where suspicions and jealousies, envy and malignity are not unfrequently brewing in the boiling caldron of domestic discord. Born within the precincts of an ill-ventilated zenana, and cooped up in the cage of an uncongenial cell, she is destined to breathe her last in that unwholesome retreat.
A European lady can have no idea of the enormous amount of misery and privation to which the life of a Hindoo female is subjected. In her case, the bitters far counterbalance the sweets of life. The natural helplessness of her condition, the abject wretchedness to which she is inevitably doomed, the utter prostration of her intellect, the ascendencyof a dominant priesthood exacting unquestioning submission to its selfish doctrines, the unmerited neglect of an unsympathetic world, and the appalling hardships and austerities which she is condemned to endure in the event of the death of her lord, literally beggar description. All the graces and accomplishments with which she is blessed by nature, and which have a tendency to adorn and ennoble humanity, are in her case unreasonably denounced as unfeminine endowments and privileges, to assert which is a sacrilegious act.
If she is ever happy, she is happy in spite of the cruel ordinances of her lawgiver, and the still more cruel usages and institutions of her country. Manu, the greatest fountain of authority, has expressly inculcated the doctrine that no man other than a Brahmin should receive the blessings of knowledge, and much more severely was the rule enforced in the case of females, who were held to be naturally unfit for mental culture! It was worse than a blasphemy to attempt to educate a female; she was born in ignorance, she must die in ignorance. All the horrors of a premature and certain widowhood were pictured forth to her eyes, were she to make an effort to enlighten her mind.[103]How shamefully contracted were the views of the Hindoo lawgiver in respect of the progressive development of the human intellect! His prohibitory injunction was and is now more honored in the breach than in observance.
From the moment a female child is brought into the world, a new source of anxiety arises in the minds of its parents, which becomes more and more intense as it advances in years. The thought of educating the child is not what troubles their heads, it is a thought which is at the furthest remove from their imagination; but the idea how to dispose of it in the world continually preys on their minds. The child, perfectly unconscious of the fate that awaits it, begins to handle the playthings set before it, and as nature in almost every case works intuitively, it soon learns to make a miniature kitchen with earthen pots and pans resembling that in the midst of which it has to spend the greater portion of its existence. It is a noteworthy fact that a Hindoo lady even when placed in affluent circumstances does not consider it beneath her dignity to occasionally take a part in thecuisine, or at least in making preparations for the same, though the family has professional cooks in its employ, the principal object being to feed her husband and children with extra delicacies prepared with her own hand. Instead of idle and unprofitable talk and scandalous gossipings, reflecting on the characters of others, such an occupation is deserving of commendation.[104]
When six or seven years of age, the mother endeavours to initiate the girl in the first course of simpleBratasor religious vows, which are destined, as has been already shewn, to exercise a vast influence on her mind. The germs of superstition being thus sown so early take a deep root. Meanwhile the anxiety of the mother for her marriage increases with her growth. Numerous proposals are received and rejected, tillat length a selection is made according to the rules stated in a former sketch. In this manner, persons are married with as much indifference as cattle are yoked together, they are disposed of according to the judgment of their parents, without the parties, who are to live together till death, having the slightest opportunity of seeing each other, much less of studying each other's disposition.
If a female child possess, as is very rarely the case, finely chiselled features, embodying the ideal of a Hindoo beauty, the breast of the mother is freed for a time, but for a time only, from perturbation or internal agitation. It may be she is congratulated on the birth of so beautiful a child, and it is but natural that she should indulge in pleasant delusions about the future of her offspring. She looks forward to a match at once desirable and happy. Fed with such hopes, she cherishes many a fond idea of the wealth of joys in store for her daughter. But how often are our brightest hopes blasted by the ruthless hand of fortune.
If, on the contrary, the girl be deficient in beauty, the bosom of the mother is perpetually disturbed by gloomy forebodings, which no worldly advantage can effectually remove, no reasoning can sufficiently suppress. The reassuring admonition of congenial minds may sustain her spirits for a time, but whenever alone or disengaged from the toils of domestic duties, her mind almost involuntarily reverts to the future destiny of the girl. As day by day she grows older, and her features begin to assume a more distinctive form, the deformity, which was but faintly perceived at first, becomes more striking. The mother herself, perhaps, being a living illustration of how fruitless were the attempts of her parents to secure for her a desirable match, naturally feels a strong misgiving as to the good fortune of her child.
While the hearts of the parents are thus filled with disquieting thoughts, the girl is perfectly unconscious of the fatethat awaits her. She laughs and sports about, regardless of what is written on her forehead by theBidhata pooroosh. The performance of the religious vow in her infancy, having for its object the securing a good husband, might incidentally remind her of marriage, but the thought passes off in a moment like the streaks of a morning cloud. Hence it has been justly said that the happiest days in the life of a Hindoo female are those preceding her marriage. If in Bengal, under the paternal care of a Christian Government, she is not permitted to become a victim to the poppy at her dawn, or the flames at her riper years, like her Rajpoot sister in times of yore, she is ever and anon subject to the appalling hardships of abidhabalife, or widowhood. Though too young to fully realise the thousand and one evils of such a wretched existence, yet the living examples she daily and hourly sees around her make, to use a native phrase, "her hands and feet enter into her belly."
To those who have studied the existing state of Hindoo society, it is a matter no less of wonder than of gratulation that the system of early marriage, the arbitrary manner in which it is consummated, and the utter absence of the voice and consent of the parties thus affianced, deriding the very idea of the slightest opportunity being given to study each other's disposition and habitude, should produce such a large amount of conjugal felicity, which is the fundamental object of this solemn compact. In every nation removed from barbarism, marriage is a recognised ordinance, alike sanctioned by the law of God and the law of man. It is a solemn covenant between a man and a woman to love each other through all the vicissitudes of life, till the union is dissolved by the death of either. We may go further and say that even then the tie of relationship does not become totally extinct, inasmuch as the party surviving has to provide for the nurture and education of children, should there be any. Suchbeing the nature of a matrimonial engagement, it is next to impossible that a boy of fourteen wedded to a girl of nine should be capable of forming an adequate idea of the grave responsibility. The evil must work its own remedy with the general spread of education and the growth of a sound system of domestic and social economy, because the existing one is unhealthy and unnatural. It is useless to dilate on the evil consequences of early marriage, they are clearly apparent in the every-day life of a Hindoo.
Nature is so propitious to us in every respect that out of evil she brings good. When the female, destitute as she is of the blessings of knowledge, becomes the mother of several children, she is raised to the rank of a governess, or in other words, she becomes aghinni, or head of the family. To all intents and purposes, she seems to understand her duties so thoroughly that almost instinctively she exercises a salutary control over a number of young girls, newly married, corrects all improprieties of conduct, and teaches them to cherish feelings of mutual kindness, love and affection.
In many cases, however, it must be acknowledged, the custom of several families—all branches of the same stem,—living together under one roof, is a fruitful source of evil, often embittering the sweet enjoyments of a peaceful conjugal life. Where there is no harmony among the several female members of a family, the slightest misunderstanding occasions bitterest quarrels, especially when there is no recognisedghinnior female head to check the same, or reconcile the parties by matronly advice. For instance, if one son in a family be well-to-do in the world, and another does not possess the same advantages, it is ten to one but that the wife of the former constantly advises him to mess separately, if not to remove to a different house, and as unequal combination is always disadvantageous to the weaker side, the latter has to put up with slights and indignities which are oftentimesunbearable, and terminate in a separation either in food or domicile, or both. It is a well established fact that a woman is the principal cause of a disruption between brothers and other members of a family. Though she is mild, soft, kind and flexible, yet she belies her nature when sordid self and mean avarice exert a dominant sway over her mind. Stinted in her culture and contracted in her views, Mammon is her god, and she looks to the welfare of her husband and her own children as the chief end of her existence. She is naturally loath to give a share of the affection of her husband to a rival; she also cannot brook the idea of frittering his earnings among his kindred. I have known of the most affectionate and devoted of brothers not being able to see each other's face under the all powerful influence of petticoat government. A European becomes a housekeeper as soon as he marries. The arrangement is an excellent one, no doubt, and as educated Hindoos are very much disposed to imitate English manners, the practice where feasible is gradually gaining ground, despite the prevalence of the old patriarchal system throughout the greater portion of the country. There is a common native saying, which runs thus: "as many brothers, so many abodes." It is to a certain extent a striking illustration of the existing state of things; harmony and peace can scarcely be found in a family where brothers are swayed, as they must be, by the irresistible influence of their wives.[105]To the credit of the patriarchal system, there still exist in every part of the country numerous families that scout the idea of a segregation.
Turning from the dark to the bright side of the picture, it is gratifying to observe that of late years, attention has been directed to, and laudable exertions are being made for, the education of Hindoo females. Nothing can compare in importance with the steady progress of this movement. After the movement had been begun by the Missionary Societies, the late Hon. Mr. Drinkwater Bethune gave an important impetus to this noble cause from the side of Government. These examples have since been followed up by other devoted friends of native improvement, and the Government has fully recognised the paramount importance of the object. This combination of efforts has already produced the most gratifying results. That there is a growing desire for learning among the females by the study of such elementary books, Bengallee and English, as have a tendency to improve their understanding, is a patent fact. Not only young girls, whose age permits them to attend schools, but grown up ladies, who are confined within the precincts of a zenana, are alike influenced by this commendable desire. Almost every respectable Hindoo family in Calcutta has a Christian governess, who besides giving primary and Bible instruction, teaches all sorts of needle-work—an art in which considerable progress has been made within the last few years.[106]This is an indication of the growth of a refined taste which is a great step towards the cause of national improvement. As we have said elsewhere, instead of spending their time in idle talk and unprofitable occupation, if not in unpleasant dissension, they now vie with each other in producing works of art and usefulness, and as a matter of course the annual distribution of rewards is a great incentive to exertion. Itis devoutly to be wished that this desire for learning and taste for works of art should gradually spread and be appreciated throughout the length and breadth of the land. In the interior, however, the mass of the people of all ranks and of both sexes are still as remote from the influence of this improvement as they were centuries ago.
It is a pity that Hindoo females are withdrawn from schools the moment they are married; this is an insuperable obstacle to the full development of their mental powers. The progress made by some of them in the zenana is really very creditable, and challenges the commendation of all who have the elevation of native female character at heart. They are not only assiduous in the cultivation of feminine graces and accomplishments, but their superior grasp of thought and language rank them among the literary women of their country. Some thirty years back the Hindoo females of Bengal were immersed in ignorance; they were represented as degraded beings incapable of improvement; not one in a thousand could read or write; but since proper steps have been taken to remove this national reproach, they have evinced an ardent desire to enrich their minds by a course of study which, though not profound, is well fitted to adorn female life. The English Church Mission, "The Scottish Ladies' Association," a department of the Church of Scotland Mission, the Free Church Mission, the American Mission, &c. are all doing an incalculable amount of good by their disinterested efforts to impart the blessings of knowledge to such zenana females as are precluded by being married from attending schools. The complete regeneration of India cannot be expected until the emancipation of the females is accomplished, practically proving to the world, as it has already done in a very limited degree, the palpable absurdity of Manu's interdictory edict, restraining them from cultivating their intellectual powers.
As a proof of the progress already made in thehigherbranches of female education, it is gratifying to state that two young ladies passed the First Arts' Examination of the Calcutta University at the end of last year. One of these was trained in the Bethune School, and the other in the Free Church Normal School. This examination represents a very considerable amount of acquirement, and is next to the B. A. Several other female candidates also passed the Entrance or Matriculation Examination at the same time. Similar progress has been reported from the Madras Presidency.
Authentic history furnishes abundant evidence of the prevalence of female education in the country to a considerable extent, until Mahomedan oppression not only proscribed Hindoo women from pursuing a literary career, but ultimately dragged them into a state of unhealthy seclusion for the preservation of their honor, which they valued more than their very life. In Rajpootana every respectable female was instructed to read and write. Of their intellectual endowments and knowledge of mankind, whoever has had opportunities of conversing with them could not fail to form a favorable impression.[107]
In this, as well as in some other eastern countries, polygamy has from time out of mind been in existence. That it is subversive of moral order and of conjugal felicity, is admitted by all who have paid the slightest degree of attention to the very many evil consequences of this abnormal institution. It is a violation of a just and divine law, opposed to the nurture and education of children, and inconsistent with the due equality of the sexes. In every country where this obnoxious practice prevails, and is dignified with the hallowed name of a social and religious ordinance, as is done in India, woman occupies a degraded position, and society is rude and unexpansive in its character. The most heinous crimes are committed without remorse, and conscience is seared, as it were, with a red-hot iron. "Nature has designed woman to be the equal of man as a moral and intellectual being; and confined to the exercise of her own proper duties as a wife and mother, she is placed in a favourable position as relates to her own happiness and the happiness of her husband." Much of the civilization of Europe is due to the high position of the fair sex in the social scale. Their education, their capacity for rearing their children in orderly and virtuous habits, their elevated conceptions of a Supreme Being, their social and domestic manners, the purity of their lives, their natural tenderness and affection, their freedom, and the moral influence of their actions on society, give them a rank in no way inferior to that of the other sex. But in this country, it is painful to realise that they are not only denied the inestimable blessings of a good education but that their first lawgiver hascondemned them to a state of abject servitude. "Women have no business" says Manu, "with the text of the Veda, this 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. Through their passion for men, their mutable temper, their want of settled affection, and their perverse nature, (let them be guarded in this world ever so well,) they soon become alienated from their husbands." Manu allotted to such women "a love of their bed, of their seat, and of ornament, impure appetites, wrath, weak flexibility, desire of mischief and bad conduct. Day and night must women be held by their protectors in a state of dependence." Apart from their practically servile condition, the apparent complacence with which polygamy is tolerated, and the facility with which a plurality of wives can be obtained, are circumstances which poison the perennial source of conjugal felicity, reduce them to a state of moral and intellectual degradation, and sap the very foundation of virtue. "A barren wife," says Manu, "may be superseded by another in the eighth year; she whose children are all dead, in the tenth; she who brings forth only daughters, in the eleventh year; she who speaks unkindly, without delay." Bullal Sen, who, if I mistake not, had first established the system ofKoolinismin Bengal, and prescribed certain rules in favor of polygamy, was singularly deficient in foresight and wisdom when he entirely overlooked the evil consequences inseparable from this monstrous matrimonial arrangement, so pregnant with mischief in whatever aspect we view it. Any artificial institution which is subversive of divine law will, in the main, prove highly unfavourable to the best interests of society. The marriage of a man with but one wife is an arrangement which should never be departed from. To dispose of the ministering angels of our existence, without the slightest regard to their futurehappiness, and yoke them to an unprincipled libertine, or a Koolin perhaps on the verge of his grave, is a system alike destructive of all social, benevolent and humane feelings. A Koolin has no regard, much less sympathy, for any one of his numerous wives, on the contrary he looks to them for gain and other worldly advantages. It is a notorious fact that Koolin wives after their marriage almost invariably live with their parents, thus virtually closing all avenues to the growth of affection between the husband and wife. The one is as estranged from the other as if there had been no bond of union between them. As the temptations to vicious indulgences are so very powerful and numerous in this wicked world of ours, the unscrupulous Koolin females of the sacerdotal class often sacrifice chastity at the altar of sensuality. The perpetration of the most horrible crimes is the necessary effect. The fault does not rest so much with the poor unfortunate females as with the diabolical system which openly tolerates and religiously upholds polygamy. That it is an unnatural state, even the most thoughtless will readily admit. In every case it is the source of perpetual disputes and misery. Domestic happiness can have no place in a family in which more than one wife lives. I have known many a person who under the impulse of passion had entered into this unnatural state deplore it as the greatest of all domestic afflictions. Even separate cook rooms, separate apartments, and separatemehals, and dining and sleeping alternately with two wives with the greatest punctuality, and giving the same set of ornaments to both, were not enough to ensure harmony, peace and tranquillity. Indeed it has become a proverb among the Hindoos, that "one wife would rather go with her husband to the gloomy regions ofyama(Pluto) than see him sit with the other." As has already been described, a tender girl of five years of age is, as herfirstinstruction before emerging from her nursery, initiated into theBrataor religious vow ofSayjooty, the primary object of which is the ruin and destruction of aSateenor rival wife. The germs or jealousy against, and contempt for, a rival being thus sown so early, they take deep root and expand in time so as to become absolutely ineradicable.
When the presence of two wives in the same house is attended with so much disquietude, the evil arising from the practices of professional Koolins is much greater. They are married to a number of females whose prospect of connubial bliss is as remote as the poles are asunder. Instead of true love and genuine attachment, the legitimate conditions of matrimony, the natural apathy of the husband is often requited by the infidelity of his numerous wives; nor can it be otherwise, the visits of the husband being, like those of a meteor, few and far between. Being destitute of the finer susceptibilities of human nature, and looking upon matrimony as a matter of traffic, he regards his wives as so many automata whose happiness is not at all identified with his own. Influenced by a sordid love of gain, bred and brought up in the lap of ignorance and laziness, and pampered by effeminate habits, he leads a profligate life typical of utter demoralisation. He cares as little for the chastity of his wives as a child does for the nicety of his playthings. By rank, profession and habit he is a debauchee. His sense of female honor is totally blunted. The thought of nurturing and educating his numerous children never enters into his mind. He knows not how many sons and daughters he has, whether legitimate or illegitimate; he is not capable of recognising them, simply because he has seldom or never seen their faces. If he keep a register of the number of his wives, he keeps no record of the number of his children. When he wants money, he pounces on such a father-in-law as can satisfy him. If he keep one wife at home, it is not from warmth of affection that he does so, but merely for his own convenience and comfort; she is made to discharge all themenial offices of a domestic maid-servant. Though never placed in affluent circumstances, yet he is the lord of thirty, forty or fifty women. It has been very aptly remarked by an eminent writer who had paid much attention to the manners and customs of the Hindoos,—that "amongst the Turks, seraglios are confined to men of wealth, but here, a Hindoo Brahmin, possessing only a shred of cloth and a piece of thread, (poita) keeps more than a hundred mistresses." Indeed such a system of monstrous polygamy is without a parallel in the history of human depravity. Prostitution, adultery, and the horrible crime of the destruction of the foetus in the womb by means of deleterious drugs administered by old women, are the inevitable consequences of this unnatural state of things. It is an undeniable fact that the daughters of Koolin Brahmins, abandoned by their unprincipled husbands, are often led into the forbidden paths of life, partly through the impulse of passion amidst the seductions of a wicked world, and partly through their exceedingly miserable circumstances. The houses of ill fame in Calcutta and other large towns are filled with women of this infamous character, and the inhuman practice ofpatefalánoprevails to an alarming extent, notwithstanding the increased vigilance of the police. Some fifty years ago a number of respectable Hindoos felt so disgusted at the mischievous tendency of the Koolin system of marriage that they were on the eve of memorialising the Government to put down the practice by a legislative enactment, such as had been done in the prohibition ofsatior female immolation, but they were assured that the authorities would not interfere in the domestic and social usages of the people.
It is gratifying to observe, however, that the growth of intelligence and the march of intellect has of late years greatly counteracted the influence of this monstrous evil. If the Rulers will not attempt to abolish a social systemopposed to the feelings of natural affection by the denunciation of the severest temporal penalties, the good sense of the people who are victimised by it must be appealed to for its total suppression.
The following extract from Mr. Ward's excellent work on the Hindoos will give the reader an idea of the fearful extent to which Koolinism prevailed in Bengal some fifty or sixty years back, when English education could scarcely be said to have commenced the work of reformation or rather disintegration.
"Notwithstanding the predilection forkoolinsthey are more corrupt in their manners than any of the Hindoos. I have heard of a Koolin Brahmin, who, after marrying sixty-five wives, carried off another man's wife, by personating her husband. Many of the Koolins have a numerous posterity. I select five examples, though they might easily be multiplied: Oodhoy Chunder, a Brahmin, late of Bágnápárá, had sixty-five wives, by whom he had forty-one sons, and twenty-five daughters. Ramkinkur, a Brahmin, late of Kooshda, had seventy-two wives, thirty-two sons, and twenty-seven daughters. Vishnooram, a Brahmin, late of Gundulpárá, had sixty wives, twenty-five sons and fifteen daughters. Gouree Churn, a Brahmin, late of Treebanee, had forty-five wives, thirty-two sons, and sixteen daughters. Ramakant, a Brahmin, late of Bhoosdaranee, had eighty-two wives, eighteen sons and twenty-six daughters; this man died about the year 1810, at the age of 85 years or more, and was married, for the last time, only three months before his death. Most of these marriages are sought after by the relations of the female, to keep up the honor of their families; and the children of these marriages invariably remain with their mothers, and are maintained by the relations of these females. In some cases, a Koolin father does not know his own children."
Not only the rules of caste, butpovertyis also a great barrier to the marriage of Koolin women, a fact which hasbeen very feelingly deplored in the following lines. Maidenly anxiety finds a natural vent in them:—