Letters of a Javanese princess/Chapter 23
XXIII[1]
August, 1901.
I SHOULD be so glad, so happy, if I could be in a position to lead children's hearts, to form little characters, to awaken young minds, to help to mould the women of the future who will be able to carry forward enlightenment like a torch. There is much misery in our Javanese woman's world, there has always been so much suffering, so much bitterness. The only road which lies open to a Javanese girl, and above all to one of noble birth, is marriage.
From far and near we know of the horrible misery of the woman caused by certain Mohammedan institutions that are so easy for the man, but oh, so bitterly hard and miserable for her.
"She soon grows accustomed to it, she finds that it is nothing," say the wise men, and then "We should have no more peace if we put such ideas into her head."
Let me, a child of Java, nourished at her breast, who has lived here all her life, assure you that the native women have honest, simple hearts that can feel and suffer as well as the most delicate, sensitive woman's heart in your country.
But here there is a suppressed suffering which consumes itself. For she feels herself powerless and defenceless through her ignorance and inexperience.
The old traditions speak. Fatima's bridegroom takes a new wife and she is asked by the prophet what she feels: "Nothing, Father, nothing," she declared. And while saying this she leaned against a banana tree; the leaves, formerly fresh and green, withered, and the trunk against which her body rested shrivelled into ashes.
Again the Father asked her what she felt and she said, "Nothing, Father, nothing."
The Father gave her a raw egg and bade her hold it against her heart; he asked her to give it back to him, he broke it open and the egg was cooked.
The Eastern woman's heart has not changed. Many think it an honour to tolerate with unmoved countenances the one or more women their husbands have brought home, but do not ask what is hidden behind that iron mask, or what the walls of their dwellings could tell when the eyes of the world are removed. There are so many burning women's hearts, with poor, innocent, suffering, childlike souls.
And it was the misery that I saw, even in my childish years, that first awakened in me the desire to fight against these time-honoured customs, and substitute justice for old tradition.
Our work will have a two-fold aim, first to help to enlighten all our people, and secondly to raise up our sisters, so that they may live and be treated as human beings. To all of you who have sympathy for Java, and the Javanese, we send an urgent prayer—help us to realize our ideals; they mean so much to our people and to our sex.
Raise the Javanese woman, educate her heart and her understanding, and you will have splendid workers to co-operate with you in your noble work, your giant's work, the work of civilizing and enlightening a whole nation.
Teach her a trade, so that she will no longer be powerless when her guardians command her to contract a marriage which will inevitably plunge her and whatever children she may have into misery.
The only escape from such conditions is for the girl herself to learn to be independent.
There is no one yet who does it, who dares do it.
It is a disgrace for a girl not to marry, to remain an unprotected woman.
Our idea is to open, as soon as we have the means, an institute for the daughters of Native chiefs, where they will be fitted for practical life and will be taught as well the things which elevate the spirit, and ennoble the mind.
Would such a school succeed? We are bold enough to answer "Yes." Many of the native chiefs send their daughters to school now, but it is only for the accomplishments, and not because they expect it to be of any practical use; or of real benefit to the woman herself. Still that does not minimize the importance of the fact that more and more, they are educating their daughters. The many government and private schools can testify to the truth of this. Even the Emperor of Solo sends his daughters to school.
In progressive Preanger, where the education of girls is no new thing, a special school for daughters of the nobles, subsidized by the Government, has been opened. There are even Regents' daughters who go to a domestic school in a strange place!
Then there are many parents who would like to send their daughters to school, yet refuse to send them where they would have to study with boys. The expense of having a governess is far beyond the means of an ordinary native magistrate, only a few are able to afford it. No wedona who has not an independent fortune can keep a governess for his little daughter. There was a young mother who asked her husband on the last day of her life as a dying request, to carry out one of her dreams, which was, as soon as he should be in better circumstances, to send her little daughter to the European school.
We have talked over this question, and also the idea of an independent self-supporting woman, many times with the wives of native chiefs, and all of them have strengthened us in our belief that some one is only needed to take the first step; to set the example, and then the path will have been opened and others will follow it. There are many girls who think and feel as we and who would be glad to break the bonds in which the Mohammedan law holds them cloistered. But they remain quiescent before that "There is no one now who does it."
There must be some one to be first.
There is a native chief who sought permission from the Director of Education for his daughter to enter the medical school. Thrice blessed Father — thrice blessed daughter! she will be of great sendee to her country. I hope that she will be able to carry out her intentions.
A younger sister of mine, Roekmini, has a great love for painting and it is her wish to be able to study at the Art Academy, so that later she may work for the development of our native art. Does not a people's art go hand in hand with a people's civilization? And if she found that the Art Academy was not the place for her, that she had not sufficient talent, then she could go to the Household School and later teach the future women the worth of money, which would be a very useful thing for our people.
My sister and I should then be able to work together. And what we are most anxious to have taught in our future schools is hygiene, and a knowledge of sanitation and nursing. Hygiene and nursing should be part of one's education. So many misfortunes could have been averted or at least reduced to a minimum, if every one, men, as well as women, had been taught something of this useful study.
It is not in the least our intention to try to make European-Javanese of the Javanese by giving them liberal educations; our idea is to develop the fine qualities that are peculiar to their race; to help them to gain by contact with another civilization, not to the detraction of their own, but to its enoblement.
I enjoyed your introduction so much to "The Land and People of Java." It warmed my heart to read the charming manner in which the beauty of my country was pictured and its wonder places described.
Often an overpowering feeling of happiness comes over us, when we are out in God's free nature. Far from the doings of little souled men, alone with nature; above our heads the blue heavens and at our feet the unfathomable sea, behind us waving cocoanut palms. Oh! who would not be happy amid such surroundings?
Sometimes I am betrayed into an egotistical thought, "Oh, let me live alone in this pure atmosphere, far from the noise of the market place, from worldly cares, alone with nature, and with my own soul!" That is pure egoism! it is not the voice of life, we are meant to live with and for humanity. But I have kept you too long already; you have other and more useful things to do than to read all this prattle from a "sentimental" Javanese girl.
- ↑ To Mevrouw Van Kol.