WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
ago, and that educated men are opposed to the practice.
Her Highness the Maharani of Baroda pleads earnestly for the introduction of those British institutions to India that will be likely to benefit women. She gives a review of various employments which might be followed by her Hindu sisters. Her book "The Position of Women in Indian Life," has somewhat more of the spirit of the West than the East. Mr. S. M. Mitra, the well-known writer on Indian life, is very emphatic, in his introduction to the volume, concerning the need for reform.
"India must learn Western ways and keep pace with the West, or she must go to the wall. India must assimilate Western ways. Blind imitation will not do. The Indian must try to harmonize Eastern practice with Western civilisation."
An industrialised, commercialised India is apparently the ideal of the Western reformers. It is not the ideal of cultivated Hindu minds. We may admit that the East will profit by the example of the West in certain directions. But it is a lamentable fact that the implanting of Western virtues in Indian soil is accompanied by a crop of vices. "It is terrible to see how demoralizing our contact is to all sorts and conditions of men," says the author of "The Soul of a People."
On the other hand, the lady doctors of the Dufferin
114