Children of India

by Janet Harvey Kelman

Even when they raised her she had no answer for the priests’ question. At last he seized a cane, and beat her to make her speak, and as the blows fell on Yogina’s back she started up and ran twice round the court. Then she fell. A shout rose from everyone there, for they believed that the evil spirit had left her at last. But it was life that had left her, and the little child, who might so easily have been nursed back to health, had been killed.

That is one story of one little girl, but it is not unlike many, many others that might be told, not only of girls, but of boys and men and women, who die because there is no one who knows how to nurse them, or to help them to get well. And many who do not die are ill all their lives afterwards, because of the way in which they have been treated.

CHAPTER VIII
BOYS AND GIRLS

But the children of India have to act as men and women long before anyone here would think them old enough to do more than learn and play. Very early indeed a little Hindu child is married. Sometimes a baby is married in the cradle, but a little girl is generally nine or ten years old before she goes away to her husband’s house. That does not mean that she and the little boy to whom she is married have a cottage, and live there together. It only means that she comes in, a frightened wee girl, to a houseful of people whom she never saw before. The oldest woman in the house takes charge of everything. Often she is the grandmother of the child’s husband, and the little wife must not only do everything the old grandmother tells her, she must try to please all the other women there too, if she wishes to be happy. If she makes the others like her, and if the boy to whom she is married likes her, she may soon be as happy there as she was at home, but if she does not get on well with the others, there is no one who can save her from misery.

One bright little girl called Runabai left her father’s house to go to her husband when she was eleven years old. Her father had been sorry when she was born, but she was so loving and happy that everyone had grown very fond of her, and she went away with beautiful Saris[5] and many flashing jewels. Her father was a wealthy man, so he sent twelve maids with his little daughter to wait on her, and keep everything about her as nice as it had been when she still stayed in his house. But her husband’s family did not like her. They took away all her beautiful clothes and jewels, and instead of letting her twelve maids wait on her, they made her work very hard herself, and do much more than she had strength for.

Then before a year had passed they began to starve her. She was only allowed to eat once a day, and then all the food she was allowed to have was rice and red peppers. One day she was cleaning the house, and she saw a little piece of bread on the table. She was hungry, and she was only twelve years old, so she picked it up and began to eat it. But before she had time to swallow a mouthful her mother-in-law caught her. She took the bread and pushed it down the little girl’s throat with a stick.

Little Runabai was sometimes allowed to go home to see her people. One time she begged them to keep her with them, and not to allow her to go back to the terrible life she had to lead. Her father was very sad. The tears were in his eyes, but he was afraid of the disgrace it would be to his family if he kept her from her husband. He knew that his caste would be broken if he did. So in spite of his sorrow he said, “Go back, and if you die it will be honourable.” She did go back, and in two months she did die, and her father and mother mourned for her, but they comforted themselves with the thought that she had died honourably!

But though a Hindu wife is often free from the pain and misery that killed this one, there is always a great fear that hangs over her, for her husband may die, and then she will be a widow. If a little wife dies, her husband may marry again, but a high caste Hindu widow must never marry a second time. Often little girls are married to full grown men; sometimes, even, they are married to old men, so it very often happens that a girl becomes a widow when she is only a child, and there are Hindu widows who are not one year old. At first the child may not know that there is any change in her life, but as she begins to grow older she finds that all the hard work is left for her, and that no one wishes to see her when a feast or a wedding is held, or when anything bright is going on. Then one day a priest comes to her village, and to the house where she lives. She is not afraid of him, for she knows no reason why he should be angry with her. But he is angry with her. He says her beautiful black hair must be cut off, and soon the barber comes and shaves her head all over. After that time she is only allowed to eat one meal a day, and twice a month she does not even get that one meal. She has to wear a rough Sari that lets everyone know that she is a widow even if she covers up her little close-shaved head, and in some cases she only has that one dress for night wear and day wear till it is so ragged that it will scarcely hold together.

Besides all that, the friends of her husband think that they cannot be too cruel to her, because they believe that she must have done something very wrong indeed in one of the lives she lived long before, and that it is because of that, that she is a widow. They think that if their boy had married another wife he would still be well and bright.

But though girls suffer far more from the early marriages of India than boys do, the boys have to bear many unnecessary burdens because of them. They have to work hard in order to help to get food for the household, and wee boys labour for long days in the rice fields. They guide the oxen at the plough, and they carry the pots of water from rivers and canals to fill the little channels that water the fields; and sometimes, even with all these early years of toil, a young man finds that he cannot feed his family or give gifts to the gods. Then he goes to a money-lender, and if he once does that, there is little happiness for him or for his children, for the money-lender will take everything from him, his jewels, his wife’s jewels, her clothes, all but the plainest which she keeps to wear; and then perhaps his fields will have to go too, and the cruel money-lender will send men to watch the rice, and the millet, and the wheat as they grow, for fear any of the crop should be reaped without his knowledge.