THE HINDU WIFE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 293, 17 July 1917, Page 4

THE HINDU WIFE.

A Hindu wife is made to feel that her life is a failure unless she is the mother of a son. According to the Brahmin ieligion, a man can, with certainty, escape hell if he had a son living at the time of his death. Where a woman does not give birth to son in eleven years, her husband must cast her aside, and choose another wife, by whom he may possibly have a son. A girl li as a miserable time of it all her life Only at night is a mother allowed to kiss or care-s her child. The bovs are allowed to roam at will; but the girls must remain indoors, and can only get out, at long intervals, for short periods. At six years of age the child is married that is, the first wedding ceremony takes plate. It is more of a formal betrothal, but with all the binding of a genuine wedding. The child must now remain indoors, and can only get out, at iong intervals, her face must be hidden from all men. If she is the daughter of a cast-off wife that is, one who for eleven years has borne no son she has to sutfer many persecutions, which eventually lead her to almost anv evil or sin.

At twelve years of age the husband, too often a very old man, comes to take the child to his home. Often the child does not wish to go, and shrieks while she vainly attempts to escape from the messengers sent to hiing her to the waiting husband. When the husband dies, the wife is shut up in a room, sometimes for years, where she sees no one, Ifer imprisonment depends on the caprice or her u:otber-in-law. As a widow, however, is a disgrace, and the sooucr she dies the better for her. It is deemed had luck to look into her face first on arising in the morning.