MARRIAGES AND MISERY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 69, 29 March 1913, Page 3

MARRIAGES AND MISERY.

AFGHANS AND AUSTRALIAN WOMEN. (By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (United Press Association.) Melbourne, : March 12,

Through the Secretary of State for the Coloriies, the Department of External Affairs has received a communication to the effect that it has come to the notice 6f the Government pf India that it is ho uncomhion practice for Afghans anti trans-border Pathans who visit the 1 Commonwealth for "purposes of -tniSe'^or - to, marry European'Svdmien while here.' s Such tha'l-riages, iti’-iV pointed out, are contracted by the husbands merely as a business transaction, and are, as a rule, fraught;with eventual misery for the wives, ‘ These* Afghans and Pathans deceive the women with lying stories of the magnificence and comforts of| their homesj 1 of their, status • jll •VI Ifl ) y , I.' . ' V ,S n l ii V h < in,their own country of .the future lives of their wives There. In this way women are indiiped' to marry, and accompany them bach across the northwestern frontier of India, where they are'promptly sold to the highest bidders. The 'miserable woman is thereafter doomed to a life of close imprisonment under most barbarous conditions, and when her attractions wane, becomes simply a household slave. She lives and dies withip the walls of a harem, without hope of communication with her relations at home.

On arrival, in India, these women are usually veiled, and kept “purdah,” so that it ip difficult to estimate'how many are taken arcoss the border, but even when they are taken openly it is impossible l for the frontier officials to interfere, as the women go willingly and are regularly married. Even were it legally possible to stop ’ them, it would be difficult to arrange for their maintenance in India and transhipment back to their homes.