India, Its Life and Thought

by John P. Jones

The relationship of son-in-law and mother-in-law is always a strained one. The wife's mother may live with her under very decided limitations. It is not permitted to her to eat in the presence of her son-in-law, or to enter a room where he happens to be!

The situation is still worse between the daughter-in-law and the mother-in-law. The vernaculars of India abound in proverbs which illumine this relationship and reveal its strange character. The husband's mother apparently delights in nothing more than in exercising a cruel restraint over her son's wife. Nothing that the young woman can do will please her. And the husband too often sides with the older against the younger woman. When, however, the situation becomes intolerable to the wife, she takes French leave, and goes home to her parents. This soon brings her husband to terms; and it is etiquette that he go and ask her to return, apologizing for the troubles that she has endured. And so the situation is improved, for a while, until another visit to her parents becomes imperative. It is natural enough that the mother-in-law should thus deal harshly with her daughter-in-law; for is it not her revenge for the similar treatment which she received many years ago as daughter-in-law? The real attitude of the Hindu toward his wife is doubtless more cordial than it appears to a Westerner. He seems to delight in revealing an indifference to her feelings and a contempt for her position. In the household, she is not permitted to eat with him; she must wait upon his lordship and take the leavings of his meal. Upon a journey, it would be gross impropriety for her to walk by his side. Etiquette demands that she walk behind him at a respectable distance of, say, ten paces.

The love of jewellery is a marked passion with the women of India. Millions of money are expended every year in the manufacture of female adornments. And in this work there are more than four hundred thousand goldsmiths constantly employed. The wealth of a family, especially among the middle classes, is largely measured by the amount of jewellery which the women of the household possess. No one would grudge to these women a certain amount of these personal ornaments; but when it becomes a mad craze to convert all their wealth into such vanity, and thus to render their wealth entirely unremunerative, it becomes a serious matter. The loading down of a woman or a girl with precious stones, gold, silver, or cheaper metal, adds anything but attractiveness to the person. It gives them a gross conception of personal attractiveness as well as a monetary value to beauty, which degrades the ideals of the country. When a woman's ears and nose, the crown of her head, her neck, arms, hands, waist, ankles, and toes are made to sparkle with the wealth of the family, and to bear down the frail body of the proud victim, they cease entirely to set off the personal beauty of the woman herself, and become rather a counter attraction; and she is admired not for what she is, but for what she carries.

Moreover, it is well known that these women are not satisfied, on public occasions, to wear their own jewels only; they borrow also those of their neighbours and shine with a borrowed light, which reflects a great deal more their vanity than their beauty. Many a time has the writer seen bright little Brahman girls carrying upon their person the combined glittering wealth of several families upon festive occasions. Add to this again the fact that there are thousands of women and children murdered in India every year for the sake of these personal ornaments which they flaunt before the public, and with which they tempt criminals.

It is claimed that higher-class Hindus are cleaner in their personal habits than almost any other people on earth. This is probably true, so far as a multiplicity of ablutions can make them. The religious washings of the Brahman are so frequent as to make him largely immune to epidemics of cholera and other filth diseases. And yet the lower classes of the people, in their homes and elsewhere, have little to boast of in the line of cleanliness. They all aspire to the weekly oil-bath, which is doubtless a wholesome thing in the heat of these tropics, where, through paucity of clothing, the skin is much exposed to the sun's rays. But oil has well-known attractive powers for dust, filth, and vermin too!

It must also be remembered that the Hindu is given much more to seeking ceremonial than sanitary cleanliness. It matters not how filthy the water may be, chemically; if it be ceremonially clean, he uses it freely. If it be ceremonially polluting, it is eschewed. As one sees a village community make all possible uses of the village pond, he wonders why the whole village has not been swept away by disease. They are saved from their folly, doubtless, by the piercing, cleansing rays of the tropical sun.

Hindu clothing is both beautiful and admirably suited to the tropical climate. The one cloth of the Hindu woman, which she so deftly winds around her body, and which is usually of bright colours, is perhaps the most exquisitely beautiful garment worn by any people. And this is altogether adequate to her needs. Unfortunately, western habits are now coming into vogue, and, in the case of men and women alike, the clothing of the West is partially supplanting that of the East. Nothing could be more unfortunate, from the standpoint of health, beauty, and economy.

The culinary arrangements and the cuisine of the Hindu home are somewhat elaborate. Well-to-do Hindus, notwithstanding many caste restrictions, are somewhat epicurean in their tastes, and live well. As we have seen in the chapter on Caste, there are many limitations placed upon the selection of food, the method of its preparation, and of eating. Meat is entirely banned by the highest castes. None will touch the meat of the bovine kind, save the outcast Pariah. All are very particular in seeking seclusion for their meals. This is perhaps the reason why the Hindu home is, generally speaking, so much more secluded than that of other people. Hindus believe that fingers were made before knives, forks, and spoons. Consequently they eat their food entirely with their fingers. It seems offensive enough to Westerners. It has often taken away the writer's appetite as he has feasted with them, to have the cook dole out his rice to him with his bare hands! They eat entirely with their right hand, and never touch the food with the left, reserving that hand for baser purposes.

In wealthy families, household duties are performed by many servants. It is amusing to see how many servants are required in India to perform the ordinary functions of one able-bodied servant in the West. The services which a Hindu will demand from his menials are far greater than those of a healthy Westerner. His languid nature and general effeminacy make him entirely dependent upon his servant for most of the activities and amenities of life. Recently the writer heard a Hindu companion in a railway car call his servant at night from an adjoining car to come and turn the shade over the compartment lamp that he might have a nap! A well-known writer, in describing the life of a Babu, says: "The Khansama of a Babu is his most favourite servant. From the nature of his office he comes into closest contact with his master; he rubs his body with oil before bathing, and sometimes shampoos him,—a practice which gradually induces idle, effeminate habits and eventually greatly incapacitates a man for the duties of an active life. Indeed, to study the nature of a 'big native swell' is to study the character of a consummate Oriental epicure, immersed in a ceaseless round of pleasures, and hedged in by a body of unconscionable fellows, distinguished only for their flattery and servility."

During times of sickness, the native doctor is in requisition. This functionary is not without his merits; for it is a hereditary profession, and not a little medical wisdom and experience have been transmitted from father to son down the centuries. Nevertheless, as compared with modern science, the ignorance of these men is woful, and the unnecessary loss of life through that ignorance is lamentable. Their pharmacy is as defective as many of their remedies are absurd and disgusting. The present government, by multiplying its hospitals and dispensaries, has done much to arrest disease and remove suffering. And yet the remedies do not reach one-tenth of the population. And many of the one-tenth are so suspicious of western science that in their extremity they will pass the well-equipped government hospital and its diplomaed attendants in order to consult the native doctor and to partake of his concoctions. One of the reasons for this prejudice is the largeness of the dose which the Indian doctor invariably supplies. How can the diminutive doses of the white man and his establishment remove important difficulties and heal serious diseases? The writer has known not a few well-educated Indian Christians living under the shadow of a well-equipped missionary hospital which furnished its medicines free, sneak away a few streets beyond to consult the man who is a compound of a quack and an astrologer. And yet, doubtless, the new pharmacy of the West brings healing in its wings to millions of this people annually; and it is one of the causes for the rapid increase of the population.