WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
vated eroticism is to be found in the religious creeds of the Eastern world.
Hindu sacred writings do not leave out of account the relations of the sexes. They contain explicit teaching upon the bodily conjugal rites, often expressed in beautiful and reverential phrases. Nothing could be purer, more lofty and poetical, than some of the counsels to husbands and wives, to fathers and mothers. Several writers on Indian life refer to "indecent pictures" on the walls of temples. One of these observers is, however, bound to admit that the paintings are "not licentious." The average traveller does not stay to inquire into the symbolism of such pictures. He immediately associates them with Western ideas of propriety and concludes that their sole purpose is to amuse or to shock. This is a very ignorant appraisement. It recalls the furtive chuckle of a lout in the contemplation of a superb painting of a nude figure in one of our public museums.
Polygamy is closely connected with the sacred erotic conceptions of the Eastern mind. Woman in India is beloved and desired, as she is in England, for her physical grace and loveliness, as well as for her virtue, sweetness, and gentleness of heart. She is a symbol, a principle, a half-divine being. There is magic in her. Endless are the taboos surrounding her sex. The curse of a woman is terrible. Her kiss is a
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