The Harim and the Purdah: Studies of Oriental Women

by Elizabeth Cooper

It is in the villages that true India is to be found, unchanging, languorous India. Here is a self-centered commonwealth, with little dependence for its welfare upon the outer world, and the people have remained the same as their fathers and their father’s fathers, impervious to new innovations and ideas. To look at one of these villages is very different from ideas one may have formed of them by reading books of travel. The first impression received upon entering one is that of an enlarged barnyard, as cows and farm implements take entire possession of the narrow streets. The low, thatched mud houses are without doors, windows, or chimneys. The floor is generally plastered with cow dung, which, when dry, leaves a hard shellac-like polish, considered by the natives most sanitary. It has to be redone every two weeks, and to Western eyes is a most unsightly operation, as it is done with the hands of the housewife. It is said that when the Salvation Army sent its first volunteers to India, they required them to live the life of the Indian, and that this smearing of the earthen floors with the national substitute for varnish was one of the chief causes why women were not always ready to volunteer for service in the East.

There is virtually no furniture in the homes. The stove consists of three or four bricks, around which the fuel, consisting of dried cakes of mud and cowdung, are broken, and which smoulder rather than burn. A few earthenware pots and a large dish in which to serve the food, some brass utensils, and a large jar for carrying water, complete the culinary arrangements. For plates, banana or plantain leaves are used, or, lacking these, small leaves are sewn together. This saves the drudgery of washing dishes, as the leaves are thrown away after each meal, and the fingers are used in place of the knives and forks of the more aesthetic races. Chairs and tables are not needed, as the Indian squats upon his haunches, as only an Oriental can; and in silence, regarding only his own food, to which he helps himself from the central dish, he eats his meal. When the lord of the household has finished, he graciously allows his wife to eat from the same leaf. No Indian woman who conforms to the customs of her race ever eats at the table with the men of her household, yet this is not confined to the women of India. The separation of the men from the women at the dinner-table is practised by all Orientals. The women of China and Japan eat with the younger children when the master of the house has finished, and no Egyptian husband, unless one of the small class who have become thoroughly Westernized, would think of inviting his wife to share with him his evening meal.

In the village homes the man shows his superiority also in the fact that the only bed in the house of the peasant or workman is that for the master, if bed it can be called—simply a rough framework of wood with coir ropes strung across it. The extra wardrobe of the family, if they are so fortunate as to possess more than the one garment which they wear, is hung on a pole in a corner of the room, and need not take much space, as the clothing of India’s poor is scant—a loin-cloth, a sheet for the shoulders, and a long piece of cotton for the head suffices him. His wife will only possess a tight-fitting little bodice, and six yards of cloth which she will drape gracefully around her body, making it serve both as dress and head covering. Yet the woman’s arms are covered often with bracelets, anklets tinkle as she walks, and as she draws her sari across her face when passing the stranger, the glint of a nose-ring is seen, or the light flashes from a necklace that rests against her brown skin. This jewellery may be of gold, silver, brass, or even of glass, but the woman of the village loves these aids to feminine charms as well as does her city sister. In the olden time the peasant had no trust in banks, and when he accumulated a few extra rupees, he added a bangle to his wife’s arm, or bought a nose or ear-ring. It served the double purpose of saving money which might be foolishly spent at the autumn fair, and also was easy to take to the moneylender in times of stress. There are many thousands of pounds of gold that go into India each year and disappear. The officials say it is turned into jewellery for these wives and daughters of India’s great middle class, who seem never too poor to have a touch of gold or silver upon the persons of their womenfolk.

The village wife is relieved of the necessity of providing clothing for the children, because until they are seven or eight years old an amulet string or a silver anklet completes their wardrobe. There are many of these little brown bodies around every doorway, looking like dark-skinned cupids. One rarely sees a child in India with a bad skin, which perhaps is due to the oil-baths which they receive in early childhood. Mothers bathe their babies in oil, then wash it off with a vegetable soap, leaving the skin soft and shining as satin. This is a luxury indulged in by older people also, and the giving of oils for the bath is a favourite present among friends.

In the shade of the porch is often seen a cradle, a very simple affair made of four pieces of wood with a hammock of cloth held between them. Around the top of the cloth is arranged baby’s toys so that he may lie and amuse himself, which is quite necessary where the mother has as many household duties to attend to as the Indian farmer’s wife. In places where the woman is working in the field, the baby may be seen wrapped in a hammock-like affair and tied to the limb of a tree; and it is a common practice among labouring women, I am told, to give the babies a drug to keep them quiet while the mothers work. Opium is very generally used in India, especially among the higher classes, although forbidden by both Hindu and the Mohammedan religion. It is supposed to invigorate the aged, and an Indian told me that he thoroughly believed that all men after they pass the age of fifty were better for the moderate use of opium.

The wife of the village man or peasant is not “purdah nashim,” or secluded, as is the wife of the rich man. She takes her share in the agricultural work, besides carrying water from the village well, making the cakes of fuel and plastering them against the side of the house to dry, grinding the meal, husking the rice, washing the clothing, and cooking the meals. Yet with all her work the monotony of her life is broken by many feasts and ceremonies in which she takes a part. Each district and temple has its own particular fête day, and there are many family feasts where work is given up at the time of special rejoicing. Relatives and friends meet together, the houses are decorated, bright saris are brought forth, and the time is spent in pleasure and merry-making. There are eighteen obligatory feasts in the year for the orthodox Hindu, but only a few of the principal ones are celebrated.

Many of the ceremonies in the home originated in sanitary laws, which would not have been obeyed unless the people were made to believe that they were of divine origin. At a certain time of the year when smallpox is rife, and the epidemic has passed, there is a worship of the “Mother,” which requires the house to be thoroughly cleaned and purified, all the old vessels broken, all old clothing burned or placed in the sun for a certain time, before the women are permitted to go to the temple to worship their favourite goddess. There is another spring feast, when the women go down to the water dressed in yellow, and send small lighted lamps down the stream to the spring goddess. At the feast of the serpents the villagers take offerings to the sand-hills, and pour milk and honey into the holes where the snakes are supposed to dwell, asking protection of these gods of wisdom, who especially guard the eyes of their worshippers. At another feast the women take red water and sprinkle it upon each other, rejoicing over the slaying of the giant god of evil. The girls take part in a pretty feast in the fall, when they decorate their little brothers with flowers and garland the houses, and at night light innumerable little lamps, making a village look like a miniature fairyland.

The village women appear rather sullen, but when known they are found to be as happy as is the wife of the average working man. If there is no drought drying up the crops, if no disease comes to the cattle, if the moneylender is not too avaricious, if a few pennies can be saved to buy bracelets from the bangle-man at the annual festival, and if the gods do not disgrace her by sending too many daughters, she is happy. Yet the village woman and her family are always but half a step in advance of the waiting wolf; famine comes with swiftness, and quick deaths from plagues to hundreds of thousands of these peasant people, who constitute nine-tenths of the population of India.

The life of the women in the small towns and villages is like life in another world compared to that led by the women in the large cities of Calcutta or Bombay or Madras. Here the Indian lady seems to be trying to lose her national characteristics, and Indian society is very disappointing to a visitor from the West who wishes to see something of the life lived by the lady of India. It seems to be merely a copy of the life of the English society woman, and her day is filled with teas, society concerts, and receptions. Their homes are thoroughly English in every department, their drawing-rooms are filled with English bric-à-brac, they go to the entertainments in most luxurious motors; their children, dressed in European clothes, are brought down to see the guest by an English governess, and English is the language of the home. Many of the Indian women are members of clubs, musical societies, and are taking active part in the charities for the benefit of their people.

The Indian woman wields a strong influence over her husband, and has more of a place in the life around her than we imagine, from the stories we hear of unhappy days spent “Behind Zenana Bars.” We are apt to consider the secluded, shut-in Eastern woman as a cowed, frightened creature, afraid to say her soul is her own, while among the better class, at least, it is quite the contrary. It takes a brave man to go absolutely against the wishes of his womenfolk, as they have the advantage of numbers in their favour. In every great household there are innumerable women relatives, satellites, and servants revolving around the personality of the mistress. These Eastern women have been schooled in the art of intrigue and understand thoroughly the efficacy of passive resistance. If the wife wishes to accomplish a certain object, and is able to enlist the women of the household on her side, the man will be compelled sooner or later to submit to her wishes.