DOCTRINE OF THE RISHEES.

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to the utter depth of darkness, from which, even streaks of light are now hardly perceptible after the best endeavours of philanthropists for nearly half a century of active labour. The time which requires to be employed in the cultivation of her own mental and moral power, and in the prosecution of those most important duties of preparing her children to be worthy citizens of this world, and eventually to receive the favours of their Maker in the world to come, she most indifferently and negligently loses in petty cares and amusements, which neither attract the fancy nor gratify the taste. Excluded as she is from the society of the world, woman in India has a little society about herself, where she finds subjects sufficient to engage her—eating, drinking, sleeping, taletelling (that is, scandalising men and families); and then eating, sleeping, drinking, and backbiting again, all over day, month, and year! A Native home resembles one of those convents of Spain and Italy, which Lamartine describes in his "Régina" as presenting "la monotonie dans le vide, l'importance dans le rien, un sensualisme pieux sanctifié par le mysticisme." This is no exaggeration, and in our convent the recluse (not even imbued with the taste of read

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ing, as the recluses of Europe!) is retained, wasting life in closeness, superstition, and sensuality. The son in his intelligent manhood wonders how he could respect the motherhood of his family when he recalls the misery of the days that he has spent in his early home in vulgar conversations, mean thoughts, and those petty amusements which fail to satisfy even the ennui of an hour, but which sufficed to afford pleasure to the whole life of the mother. But the poet has said, "The sports of children satisfy the child,"

and the Indian mother thinks nothing of making the mechanical concerns of the kitchen, the settling of the disputes and differences of the family, or the getting up of fresh ones in her turn; sewing and scandalising; bargaining for materials to deck her body; marrying her sons and daughters at an early age; and, after marriage, becoming anxious for their begetting children in their turn ;* and the strict observ

* The propagation of our species is a desire natural to man, and more perhaps to woman; but when it sinks into the idea of the beau ideal of all domestic happiness, it becomes a low grovelling passion for animal appetite. But so it is in India, that when two women, whether Parsee, Hindoo, or Mussulman, meet together, the inquiry as to sons or daughters, if about ten years old, invariably turns as to whether they are married or not, and if twelve or fifteen, whether they have begotten any children

FEMALE OCCUPATIONS.

81.

ance of almost all the superstitious ceremonies and extravagant customs of her forefathers, to be the sole solitary incidents of the history of her life. In the present void of her mind, she

already! A youth of fifteen or sixteen, if he has not begotten a son or daughter, is victimised with base taunts; when twenty or upwards, this circumstance is held past bearing. Instances to illustrate this observation are too numerous; and the writer of these pages has not himself been spared very uncomplimentary remarks, even from our so-called "educated women," for his single position in life. To be a single man among the lower orders till twenty or thirty, or even for life, is perhaps regarded with no very great aversion; but to be such when one belongs to a well-to-do family is held utter damnation. The religious injunctions on this head are themselves injudicious. The writer of these pages has, through the assistance of his Sanskrit teacher, been able to glean the following, which, he hopes, will be found interesting. The Mutcha Purana says-"No man ought to remain unmarried even for a day; if he does so, he must perform certain penances as an atonement. And this, although he may otherwise be diligent in prayer, in giving alms, and in studying the Veda"! The Bhavishiut Puraną says—“ If a man marry after his forty-eighth year, he shall be accounted sinful; but if he remain unmarried, or without a male child, until his forty-eighth year, all the good actions of his life shall be of no service to him"!! And again, in the same Purana, in another place, we have been struck with the absurdity-"If a girl is not married before the age of puberty, her father, mother, and elder brother are rendered for ever sinful." And what does the reader imagine the age of puberty to be? Our Sanskrit studies are not much advanced; but yet we can tell him with confidence that this age of puberty is ten!-(Vide Chandrogepurusistang.)

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has nothing to amuse or instruct her, and she finds complete satisfaction if she is occupied only with the enjoyment and dissipation of the present. Having learnt nothing, she has nothing to teach to her children, who, in the natural constitution of the human mind to remain unaffected by surrounding impressions, early learn lessons of effeminacy, listlessness, and vulgarity at home. The long chain of her duties and amusements, from the time she rises from her bed to the hour when she again retires to rest, can be very easily epitomised, to the shame of every Indian patriot. With the crowing of the cock she rises from her bed, and commences the dull routine of the affairs of the kitchen, calling daughters and daughtersin-law, and domestics, if any, to assist her in their management; grumbling, and often abusing and gnashing at them, at every little inattention, or failing in properly executing her little commissions. Then, kindling her fire, she sits basking before it till she is half melted, and prepares her little things for breakfast, which are no sooner ready than they are eaten up by the little children and other members of the family, who have by this time. become alive to the call of nature. She next

DAILY ROUTINE.

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engages herself in the preparation of dinner, which is dispatched before the husband leaves for his office. During the afternoon, she explains minutely the various operations she performs in the morning to her fellows, who then generally visit her on matters of friendship or business-relating, imprimis, how sedulously she engaged herself in her affairs, what amount of labour, dexterity, and diligence she was obliged to undergo in placing rightly the different utensils, vessels, and the other articles of the kitchen; and how watchful she was to discover the slightest degree of negligence, or absence of expertness, or the least departure from her sanctioned injunctions, in her domestics and daughters-in-law; then regretting their dishonesty in shirking from her orders, and the whispered blamings and broils with which her attention was engaged in the morning, and which were conducted in a suppressed tone lest her companion in life should be disturbed in his sweet repose; next depicting the conduct of her consort with fond epithets, praising him for his good sense in acquiescing in all her favourite propositions, and in essaying to contribute to gratify her little vanities; applauding his earnestness and determination in obviating