India, Its Life and Thought

by John P. Jones

And yet, when it comes to matters of religion, her stern piety and her religious devotion in the home are the most potent factor of the household; and husband and father will bow to her supremacy in this realm. All public life and social functions have been proscribed to her; therefore, does she see to it that in her narrow home sphere, both religiously and in the training of her children, her influence shall be supreme. And it is.

It is here that the progress of Christianity is much impeded in India. A man is often found ready to change his faith, and to abide the consequence of the same. It is much more difficult for a woman to transfer her affection. But the conversion of the husband will not abide in permanence so long as the wife persists in her devotion to the ancestral faith. The writer has often seen illustrations of this supremacy of the influence of the woman. But it is not always so. In 1823, a Brahman child was born in Calcutta. When six years old, he lighted, by torch, the funeral pyre of his dead father and living mother. When he attained manhood and had received a University education, he became a Christian. He was then not only renounced by his family, but his young wife also spurned and denied him. In accordance with her faith, she regarded and treated him as dead, performed his funeral rites, and, with shaven head, unjewelled body, and the widow's white cloth, mourned his decease as if he had actually died. For Christ's sake he had been an outcast from his people and was twice dead to his beloved. This experience has been repeated a thousand times in India in the case of Christian converts. But, in this particular instance, there was a remarkable dénouement. The young man, deserted, divorced, and ceremonially buried by his wife, married a Christian woman, with whom he lived happily for many years. But after her death he returned to his first love and remarried the widow of his youth, who, in the meanwhile, had relented and become a Christian. This was the experience of Professor Chuckerbuthy, of the General Assembly College, in Calcutta, who died in 1901.

Marriage among Hindus differs in many respects from the same compact among western people. It is in no instance dependent upon the initiative of the contracting parties, if such the bride and the bridegroom may be called in India. Neither of them is a direct participant in the arranging of the contract. It is all done by the parents or the guardians of the boy and girl. It is entirely a business, and not a sentimental, affair. No other system would be possible under past and present conditions in India. In the case of infant marriages, the children concerned have, of course, neither knowledge of, nor special interest in, the matter. Even in cases where the future bride and bridegroom have attained puberty, no sentiment is ever allowed to enter, as a consideration, into the matter. The first question asked is whether the parties belong to the same caste and are connected by family ties. If so, the marriage may be a suitable one. It is strange that the children of brothers and sisters furnish the most suitable marriage relationships. But the children of brothers, or those of sisters, furnish a prohibited relationship! It is regarded as improper for a boy to marry the daughter of his mother's sister, or of his father's brother, as it would be to marry his own sister. The marriage of those remotely connected by blood is rarely considered; the marriage of those not at all connected by blood relationship, never.

The next matter of paramount importance is a consideration of the horoscope of the parties. Were the boy and girl born under astrological conditions which harmonize; or does her horoscope so conflict with his that their dissonance would bring evil and misery to the family? In the latter case, a marriage will be impossible, even though all other conditions are most inviting.

Then follows the question of dowry; and here comes the great struggle. The girl's parents have to furnish, with the bride, a considerable dowry, whose size is directly related to the affluence of the boy's family, or to his education and prospects in life. The bickerings which take place in this matter are most unseemly; and the marriage compact is degraded into a sordid, mercenary transaction. Fathers of girls involve themselves in debts which they can never clear, in order to marry their darlings to sons of high families of good connection. It is this difficulty of marrying daughters, save at an intolerable expense to the family, which largely accounts for the universal and keen disappointment of Hindu families when they discover, at childbirth, that a daughter, and not a son, has been born.

The contract having been sealed by definite religious ceremony, the children wait until the girl attains puberty, which may take place at any time, from the age of ten to fourteen. Then the rites of consummation are performed, and they live together as man and wife. Until the marriage is consummated, it is the height of propriety that the parties shall be apart and strangers to each other.

It is very often the case that there is much disparity between the age of man and wife. A married woman is supposed to belong to her lord for time and eternity. A widow is therefore ineligible for remarriage, even though her husband may have died when she was an infant. The man, on the other hand, may contract any number of marriages. The rapidity and the businesslike way with which he proceeds to arrange new nuptials after the death of his wife seems appalling to a Westerner! It matters not how many wives he may have had, nor how old he has become, none but the very young is eligible to become his spouse. The consequence is that many men of matured, and even of old, age are wedded to mere girls.

This is partly owing to the fact that the Hindu has not yet realized the need, or importance, of companionship between man and wife. This is very marked among the educated men of the Hindu community. Not only by age, but also by educational and other qualifications, a wife is in no condition to be a sympathetic companion to her spouse. So that the relationship has, to them, little of mutuality in it.

The lot of the Hindu widow is, proverbially, a hard one. She is despised and hated, even though she be but a child, because her husband's family persist in believing that his death was caused by her adverse horoscope. She suffers every obloquy in her husband's home, is deprived of her jewels, has her head shaven, and is clothed only with a coarse white cloth. Her fastings are long and severe, and she is not allowed to attend any festivity; for the presence of a widow would be deemed an evil omen and a curse.

Moreover, she is the object of suspicion, and is frequently the prey of men's passions. It is a strange comment upon the religious perversity of a people of the tender domestic nature of Hindus, that they should deal with so much cruelty and such apparent indifference to the bereavement and suffering of the unfortunate widow who bears so tender a relationship to them. Religion has never wrought greater cruelty and injustice to any one than to the Hindu widow, specially to the child widow. And, notwithstanding the fact that these suffering ones are a great host in this land, there are few of their people who raise their voice in their defence or strive for their relief.