Her story was interesting—she was the daughter of a King, and educated beyond ordinary. “She shall be as a son to me,” had said her Father, and he taught her to read and write and figure, and rumour said that even the local magazine was edited from behind the Purdah. When she was of an age to marry, her family Priest went a horoscopical tour to secure her a husband.
At Benares he met the family Priest of another Raj in search of a bride, and the two Priests agreed to end their wanderings, and accommodate each other. But alas! the bride-groom’s priest had not revealed that his patron was half-witted, nor that the Ministers of the estate were in negotiation for a lady from among themselves. So, on her wedding day the Raj candidate learnt both that she was wedded to an idiot, and that she had a co-wife.
She afterwards said that the first six months of her life were almost happy, though she did not realize this till the contrast of the afterwards had come upon her. They killed her babies—as they were born, they were both boys—one they smothered in tobacco fumes, the second had less merciful handling. For the birth of the third she requested protection, taking care to explain that her husband was not at fault, “God had made him a fool.” She was given a fortress not far from the Capital, a Guard was put on the gate.... All this happened nine years before help reached her. In the meantime the Guard had become her gaoler. Food she had none, save the remnants of stores laid in nine years previous; servants or companions she had none. For nine years had she had speech of no one.
Her father had died; all attempts made by her old Mother to get to her, or to get news of her, had failed. Then, in penitence for making the marriage, her old family Priest brought me to her. I have never forgotten what I found at the end of that difficult journey ... a fortress in ruins, the home of bats, and so unsavoury that the only clean spot was a small roof-terrace furnished with a string bed and a broken chair or two. Here lived the Ranee and her son; he was alive and safe—in this she had her reward; but provisions were reduced to one earthen pot of grain, and endurance was much strained.
She told me her story, with pitiful entreaties not to hold her husband to blame; how could the poor creature, God-blasted, be responsible? The ministers were responsible, who held her liable for the fact that her co-wife had daughters only, always daughters! Even calling the last—“No more of this Kalidevi”—had brought no improvement. Yes, she had seen her husband; once he made his way into the Fortress through a private gate while out hunting, and he climbed up to the roof-terrace and sat on the broken bed, and said: “Let me go, lest I be moved to compassion and help you.” And she had helped him to go secretly, swiftly, even as he had come.
Poor man, what further proof were needed that he could never be to blame. “Had not God Himself made him a fool? she blamed him not,” but I noticed that she devoted herself passionately to providing against like misfortune for the son. We took her servants and supplies, and later brought her away in safety to her Mother. The Fool lives. The co-wife must now be dead, for when last I heard of my Ranee two significant things were reported of her: one was that she worshipped an empty earthen pot with the left hand (that was to show contempt), and then, to protect herself, offered the first mouthful of every meal to an amulet which hung round her neck. And are not both these things known to the initiated as referring to ghosts of co-wives alone?
Yet another type is the woman who rules a State, whether in her own right (as with the Begum of Bhopal), or as widowed regent.
History tells us of one such lady, whose diary of statecraft an emperor of India was glad to consult. Shrewd, wise, far-seeing, responsible, the Purdah has hardly been any drawback to the women born with a talent for ruling, though even for these exists the chief danger of seclusion, namely, that they may get to view life through the eyes of one person—their chief adviser.
Where he is unreliable and the woman is weak the danger will be apparent to all.
It is the chief adviser who rules in reality, manipulating her revenues, surrounding her with creatures bound to him by ties of relationship or purchase; as likely as not her spiritual guide is also of his choosing, and the lady is in a coil from which extrication is well-nigh impossible. I have seen her struggle to get free, and fall back again helpless; but most often she is dangerously unconscious of the subtle influences abroad. Her day is spent grossly, lying on her elbow among brocaded cushions, chewing betel-nut, while her maidens fan her, or amuse her with tales of Court rivalries and jealousies. Her Prime Minister brings her documents to sign, and she hears perhaps an occasional account of his administration of the estate, but there is no sense of obligation towards her people; no interest, even parochial, in their daily life; no thought for their welfare. It is not to the advantage of the chief adviser to encourage feelings of this kind, and the woman herself has too little imagination to care about the wants of subjects whom she never sees.