"Your brother kept your wife while you were away?"
"Of course. I don't know how it is here, but in the part of India where I was born, brothers normally share each other's wives. I used to go to my older brother's house when he was gone and visit his wife. She expected it and would have been upset if I hadn't come to her." Vasant Rao was puzzled by Hawksworth's surprise. "Don't brothers share one another's wives in England?"
"Well, not. . . usually. I mean . . . no. Hell no. It's damned close to incest. The truth is a husband would have grounds to call out a man he caught with his wife. And especially a brother."
"'Call him out,' Captain? What does that mean?"
"A duel. With swords. Or maybe pistols."
Vasant Rao was incredulous.
"But what if a man goes away on a campaign? His wife will grow frustrated. Hindus believe a woman has seven times the sexual energy of a man. She would start meeting other men in the village if a man didn't have a brother to keep her satisfied. In the village where I grew up, if a man and woman met together by chance in the forest, and they had the same caste, we all assumed they would make the most of the opportunity. So it's better for the honor of the family if your brothers care for your wife. It's an important duty for brothers. And besides, as long as a woman attends to her own husband's needs, what does it matter if his brother enjoys her also?"
Hawksworth found himself astonished.
"How does . . . I mean, what about this brother's own wife? What does she think about all this?"
"If her husband wants to visit his brothers' wives, what should she care? It's normal. She'll also find ways to meet her husband's brothers for the same purpose. Women married to brothers often try to send each other away on errands, in order to enjoy the other's husband. So wives have no reason to complain. In fact, if a woman returns to her own village for a visit, she will probably seek out some of the men she knew when she was young and enjoy them, since her husband is not around and no one in her own village would tell him. Hindus in the villages don't lock away their women the way the Muslims do, Captain Hawksworth. And because they're free to enjoy whoever they wish, they aren't frustrated and unhappy the way Muslim women are. Surely your England is an advanced country where women have the same freedom."