EVERY- DAY LIFE OF INDIAN WOMEN 45 



only to loosen tlie meshes for a time. Slowly and surely tlie intan- 

 gible threads have tightened again, as by degrees the very cus- 

 toms created by the schismatics are adopted by its priests, and 

 made to conform to the general theory — all the harder to resist 

 because it is never formulated. The bulk of the Mohammedans 

 of India, being descendants of tribes converted wholesale in vari- 

 ous ways to Islam in days gone by, are still Hindoos in many mat- 

 ters of thought and custom. In fact, if we extract the profession 

 of faith and a few formulse, it is not at all easy to say, as regards 

 them, where Islam begins and Hindooism ends ; in any case Brah- 

 manism overshadows their lives. The Jains, at least that impor- 

 tant section of them known as the Saraogis, are separated from 

 Hindoos proper rather in sentiment than in fact ; and though 

 the Parsees, Jews, and Christians have greater powers of resistance 

 yet it would not be difficult to show how greatly the all-pervading 

 faith of Hindoostan has influenced them too. Many a missionary 

 could tell a tale of more or less ineffectual battle against the no- 

 tion of existence of a Christian " caste." Of course, I am not now 

 speaking of the tenets deliberately held by the authorized expo- 

 nents of the several rival creeds, but of the religious ideas of the 

 unintelligent masses, which are to my mind the outcome of an un- 

 thinking reverence for things usually held to be holy, i. e., hagiola- 

 try, whatever be the outward expression of faith. Of such a state 

 of things Brahmanism is pre-eminently adapted to take full advan- 

 tage, for it presents no bold front to prejudices, and bends no man 

 to its will, but rather puts forth its tender tentacles, gradually 

 draws to itself, and quietly absorbs all things. 



I would not have it inferred, from what has been just said, that 

 I hold all the women of India to lead practically identical lives ; 

 that the secluded banker's daughter has much in common with 

 the scavenger's wife, free to go where she pleases and to speak to 

 whom she will .; or that the worthy spouse of the village Maulavi 

 would not at once flare up and feel highly insulted if told that her 

 life was conducted on much the same lines as that of the Pandi- 

 tani over the way. It would be more than erroneous, moreover, to 

 state that a woman of Kumaun has exactly the same views of pro- 

 priety as she of Mahabaleshwar, or that the grimy Panjabi has 

 manners similar to the oiled and carefully bathed inhabitant of 

 Madras. All I wish to assert is, that a special way of living un- 

 derlies all those differences which appear so great to the casual 

 observer, and that beneath the chance-tossed waves on the sur- 

 face there lie hidden depths of female life which are distinctly 

 Indian, and which can be best sounded by a study of the high- 

 caste Hindoo women. 



I can not enter into the details of the life of orthodox Hindoo 

 women. Nothing more, indeed, can be done now than to indicate 



