WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
The wave of feminine revolt is sweeping steadily eastwards. It has reached Turkey, and has spread to the farther East. In another chapter I shall present a very different point of view from those of certain of my Indian friends and correspondents.
For the present, we are considering the Hindu reverence for woman as the lover, the bride, the life-giver. She is more than this. There is a sacredness, something that arouses awe, in her body, and her physical functions. To show how deep and sincere is this mingled emotion of piety and sex-love, I cannot do better than quote some lines by the greatest living Indian poet, Rabindra Nath Tagore, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.
GOD AND THE ASCETIC
At midnight the would-be ascetic announced:
This is the time to give up my home and seek for God. Ah! who has held me so long in delusion here?"
God whispered, "I!" But the ears of the man were stopped.
With a baby asleep at her breast lay his wife, peacefully sleeping on one side of the bed.
The man said: "Who are ye that have fooled me so long?"
The voice said again, "They are God!" But he heard it not.
The baby cried out in its dream, nestling close to its mother.
God commanded, "Stop, fool; leave not thy home." But still he heard not.
God sighed and complained, "Why does My servant wander to seek Me, forsaking Me?"
How exquisitely the writer expresses the holiness of love and parentage.
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