Page:Modern Hyderabad (Deccan).djvu/83

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MODERN HYDERABAD.
71

much to do with the high rate of female mortality, also the unskilled midwifery, which the Victoria Zenana Hospital in Hyderabad is now trying to do away with. The proportion of female to male children has, however, increased during the last decade, for while in 1901 the male and female populations under ten years of age numbered 1,414,320 and 1,393,700, in 1911 they numbered 1,788,219 males and 1,830,461 females.

There are fewer females in Telingana than in Marathwara, although the proportion of early married women is highest in the latter division. And in Hyderabad city, owing to the large immigrant population, there are only 660 females per 1,000 males.

Mahomedan women marry later than their Hindu sisters and they appear to live longer, owing, no doubt, to the fact that the members of the ruling community are physically and materially better off than those of the subject races. Also Mahomedan women are very strictly secluded and are seldom, if ever, allowed to become "beasts of burden." Travel the State from end to end, and you will not find a Mahomedan woman showing her face, much less working in the fields and carrying on her back a load