WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
sheltered life for women, and smiles at our English ideal of sex-equality.
Men walk alone in the streets of the cities of India. Notwithstanding, Miss Noble asserts that women have quite as much "equality" here as falls to the lot of the average single woman "living alone, or following professional careers, in the suburbs of London and other Western cities."
Self-effacement and utter unselfishness is the ideal of the devout Hindu wife and mother. Husbands and wives do not "address each other in the presence of others"; and "a wife may not name her husband, much less praise him." According to the Sister Nivedita, this reticence is based on a sense of what is called "good form" in England, and is no proof of a lack of respect for womanhood, marriage, and family life. The Indian wife adores her husband with "passionate reverence"; and in return her husband offers her boundless tenderness and protection. He was taught to honour and love his mother; he is equally reverential and affectionate towards his wife and the mother of his children. The wife is the happy, willing servitor, companion, and disciple of the husband. She kneels to him and touches his feet when he pleases her. It is not equality. "No," says Miss Noble. "But who talks of a vulgar equality, asks the Hindu wife, when she may have
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