husband or other male relatives. They have been brought up to consider a life of seclusion as not only the safest but also the only respectable one, and to look upon a breach of any of their national customs as a crime. Even when the men of the family, having imbibed something of European ideas on the subject, are willing to allow a measure of freedom to the women, these latter themselves will not unfrequently refuse the proffered boon, the older ones among them over-riding the inclinations of the younger, and denouncing in unmeasured terms the proposed innovation.
We all know, even in England, how great is the force of old-fashioned prejudice and of received notions of propriety, and how difficult it is for anyone, especially for women, to set themselves in opposition to them. Of late years, indeed, the authority of Mrs. Grundy has been frequently and successfully defied, and women can now do and say many things with impunity which fifty years ago would have brought upon them social ostracism. Bearing these facts in mind, we shall be better able to understand the difficulties that lie in the way of Indian ladies, who wish to lay aside the restraints with which a thousand years of unbroken custom has bound their sex, and to accept the education and the social freedom and independence which we are so anxious to offer them, and we shall be better able to appreciate
