‘In the absence of her husband, a wife, though she may receive, pays no visits. When the women travel, or move from one house to another, they are concealed with all the precaution generally attributed to an Eastern journey; their palanquins are carefully shut up, and attended, when the rank of the person demands it, by guards composed of eunuchs, and sometimes by armed women, who are called, from their countries, Toorknees, Zillmaknees, Oorda-Bignees, &c. This jealous care, however, is not taken by all classes. The Rohillas, for instance, are less scrupulous: among themselves, their women travel unveiled, and without ceremony. Indeed, among the northern nations, we can trace but little of that guarded precaution so conspicuous in the cities of Hindostan.
‘No ceremony is observed at the naming of a child. The parents choose a name, which habit soon confirms. The great are credulous, and often call in an astrologer, who is mostly a Bramin, to cast the child’s nativity, and to fix on, or to approve of, a name; but this is not usual, nor is feasting, nor merry-making, as at our christenings.
‘A son is at no age debarred from freely entering the zenanah, though it may contain numbers of women not at all related to him; and, should the encreased bulk of any of the slave-girls shew symptoms of his attention, it will hardly be deemed a crime in either party. However, as the parents are solicitous to prevent such an intercourse, they rarely fail to provide the young gentleman with a wife, so early as circumstances will admit. Should this be delayed, a slave-girl would be allowed him, but the intercourse must proceed in such a manner, as if the parents were ignorant of the affair; the progeny from this connection would be received into the family on equal terms with those born in wedlock; being once acknowledged, they are entitled to every privilege of inheritance. Primogeniture, among the Mahomedans, gives no superior claims to their real, or personal property: the division of the estate is easy, for a son gets double the share of a daughter.
‘The evidence of women of rank is taken by male relations, or by women properly authorized by the Cazee[[10]] for that purpose; but female testimony is inadmissible in cases of life and death. A woman of rank never suffers public punishment, for the parents or husbands, to prevent her disgrace, would themselves cause her death; the only kind of punishment, indeed, that a woman of this description seems liable to undergo.
[10]. Cazee is a judge, or justice.
‘When they are indisposed, application is made to the doctor; who, upon enquiring into the symptoms[symptoms], and examining certain QUACKISH tokens, prescribes accordingly; but, if the disorder be obstinate, the doctor is permitted to approach the purdah, (i.e. curtain, or screen,) and to put his hand through a small aperture, purposely made, in order to feel the patient’s pulse. The lady’s hand or arm is never exposed to view, at least not to any male: on this occasion, the doctor’s hand is guided to the pulse by a female attendant.
‘Widows seldom take a second husband, though allowed to do so. Young widows are sometimes married to the husband’s brother, but even this is not frequent. Women of rank sometimes suckle their own children. In the choice of a wet-nurse, they are extremely particular, as all her family are by that means considered in the light of relations; a custom so far adhered to, as to preclude the possibility of intermarriage between the child thus suckled, and the children of its nurse.
‘Women in India never go to public baths. Each house in general is furnished with hot and cold baths. Where the former cannot be afforded, a boiler is always in readiness. Bathing is commanded as a necessary purification after most of the common occurrences of life. So much so, that most married ladies, under certain circumstances, are obliged to perform the ablution even in the middle of the night; and, as in these ceremonies if the parties are at all particular, it requires the hair to be wet, it affords occasion the next morning for their female friends to exercise their wit on the occasion.