That ended the serious part of the long complicated ceremony. The newly married twain fed each other solemnly from a bowl of sugar; and then grave ceremonial gave way to mirth and noise. Presents were made to the priests. A feast was served; and an excellent feast it was. They gave me some, but I had to eat it apart; with them I might not sit, nor eat,—even the courtesy of a high-caste Brahmin failed before such a desecration of caste purity. All night long trumpets blared, shrill native fifes shrieked, drums and wild songs rent the air, and great fires flared up to heaven, making the big clumps of slender bamboos look red.
I fear I have been tedious; I hope I have been clear. A Hindoo marriage is an intricate performance. I have not described it entirely. The religious ceremonies were supplemented by many others that were customs, not observances of faith.
The vows of a Hindoo marriage are most beautiful. Unfortunately they are repeated in Sanskrit, and the bridal pair rarely, if ever, know Sanskrit. Let us hope that they know the meaning of the words they utter parrot-like. Certainly young children are as ignorant of the sense as of the language. I have seen a Hindoo bridegroom of five—a sweetly pretty boy he was.
But the ritual of the Hindoo marriage ceremony, whether it means much or little to the celebrants, can, at least, show us what the great founders of mighty Hindooism meant Hindoo marriage to be. And it behoves us to understand the spirit, the essence, of Hindoo life before we alter it by the right of might—I mean the might of right. Moreover it behoves us to know how Hindoo usages work. Child-marriage is revolting; but I have heard Hindoos make one or two tiny points in its favour. I saw something of Hindoo home-life, and I thought that it was, as a rule, devoted and happy; I know more than one eminent Hindoo to-day who is beautifully under his wife’s little brown, be-ringed thumb.
The Hindoo women cling to their racial customs far more pertinaciously than do the men. I knew several delightful Hindoo women; they despised me, but they were very kind and courteous, and I admired them exceedingly. One of them was a woman of great intellectual strength and commensurate culture. One day she said to me, “What is this ‘woman’s rights,’ of which so much you talk?” I disclaimed any share in the epidemic that had attacked so many of my sisters, and then I explained to her the movement as eloquently as I could, and as justly as a woman was able to do who despised that of which she spoke.
“I see,” she said, turning her great, languid eyes on mine; “they would have us renounce an immense, veiled, real power, for a little apparent power; they would make us lose our power over men, to have, of ourselves, and our lives, the little control that men do have of themselves and of their lives. In Europe, women who are not strong, think too much, talk too much. The big thought in the little brain will not go, only one part of it. And the sound of their own voices it makes them mad.”
Nothing so surprised me in the East as did the upper class Hindoo women—their content, their position, and their enormous influence. The men of Ind are comparatively easily converted to our social modus operandi. We underrate the strong opposition we will encounter from the Hindoo women.
CHAPTER IX
KING THEEBAW’S STATE BARGE
We went from Calcutta to Rangoon. In Burmah the shadow of a great personal sorrow fell upon us. Our reminiscences of Burmah are too sad and too sacred to be put between the covers of a book. But there is a great deal that is interesting that I may try to tell about Burmah before I catch up my little personal narrative in China.