The Women of India—The Widows—The American Zenana—Prizes Awarded in a Girl’s School—Annandabai Joshee—Her Visit to America—Reports to the Government—Departure from India—Burmah—Ceylon—Arabia—Cairo.
From our point of view the social condition of women in India is highly deplorable. The women are not regarded as the equals of men, but rather as an appendix to them. Their religion teaches that they have no acknowledged rights as individuals, and that the only happiness they can attain in this world and in the world to come is to become wives and mothers of men, and that the more a woman sacrifices herself for man the greater will be her reward in the future. If the man to whom she is married dies, the remainder of her life is full of sorrow and suffering, and it is only in the life hereafter that she can expect any happiness, and that by being reunited with him.
This belief gave rise to the so-called “sati,” or the custom to burn the wife on her deceased husband’s pyre in order that she might at once be reunited with him and enjoy salvation through him. “Sati” is now prohibited by the English government, but every widow in India is still doomed to a life of misery and degradation.
When we consider that polygamy is practiced to a very large extent among the rich so that a man is allowed to have any number of wives, and may keep on taking new wives as long as he lives, it may easily be understood what a great number of widows there must be. There is an old man, for example, who dies and leaves many widows of different ages, some of them only ten or twelve years old, none of whom are allowed to marry a second time. They are deprived of all ornaments, and compelled to wear a very coarse, plain dress, to live on the plainest food, and work hard for the man who inherits the property of the deceased husband, and who is generally his brother or his son. This is the reason that rich families have a large number of women in all ranks and conditions, from the mistress of the house, which position is held by the husband’s mother, to the humblest servant woman. The education of women is prohibited; hence they are very much like children, playing with their dolls, jewels and other toys, and having no higher idea of life in general than what they have been taught in the nursery. It is rather fortunate, therefore, that these lamentable victims of prejudice live in ignorance, as long as the present condition exists, for otherwise their life would be still more miserable.
In the course of the last few years missionaries from Europe and America have opened schools for the education of girls. The most prominent of these is located in Calcutta, and has many branches in other parts of India. It is called “the American Zenana,” or ladies’ mission, and during my stay in India it was managed by a Miss Hook, a very estimable lady of Danish descent, the fruits of whose noble work will be of incalculable value to future millions of Hindoo women.
MISSION HOME AND SCHOOL.
At an examination in this school I had the honor of distributing the prizes, consisting of five hundred American dolls sent by Cyrus Field of New York. The recipients were the most dainty and pretty little girls one could see. I wish I could describe this festivity. I sat on the platform in the great hall with Miss Hook to the right, a pundit or learned Brahmin to the left, and surrounded by the American and native teachers and some American tourists. The immense hall might be compared with a beautiful flower terrace alive with different colors, every little girl shining like a pretty flower in her red, green, white, blue or purple dress, her pretty black hair sparkling with gold and silver ornaments or jewels. They were all listening with close attention until their names were called, when they modestly, their faces beaming with joy, stepped up to receive the pretty dolls sent by the generous American.
At first these schools met with bitter opposition on the part of the better classes of natives, but these prejudices gradually died away, and at present the mission schools are not subject to either persecution or ill-will.
One day in February, 1883, I received a visit at my home by a Brahmin of the highest class, accompanied by his young wife and her little sister. Her name was Annandabai Joshee. Her husband was postmaster in the old Danish city Serampoor. He was a highly educated man, about forty years of age, with fine, affable manners. His wife was nineteen years old, and they had been married nine years. With the exception of the queen of Kutch Behar and a few in the Zenana mission, she was the first educated Hindoo woman that I had met. Her husband had given her an excellent education.