# Women Under Polygamy/Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII
THE ZENANA
The princely harems of India rival in magnificence those of Egypt and Turkey. When an ex-king of Oude was awarded a mighty revenue from his kingdom, as a pension from the English, he built a miniature walled city on the Hooghly. Here he ruled over several thousand subjects, and held a stately court. His chief wives were two in number, and he had thirty-nine inferior wives, called Mahuls, "bearers of children." Besides these women, the ex-sovereign owned one hundred Begums. His family consisted of thirty-one sons and twenty-five daughters; fifty-six children, and all of them living.
This potentate's stipend of £10,000 a month was inadequate. He was always in debt. His palaces were from three to four, and he occupied them ​alternately. Surrounding the royal residences was one of the finest menageries in the world. There were "20,000 birds, beasts and snakes," and in the tank were numerous kinds of fish. The pigeons alone numbered 18,000. The monarch who presided here, like Solomon in all his glory, had artistic tastes. He painted pictures and composed songs for the nautch girls, who sang them in all parts of India. He had a troupe of dancers, and an orchestra of musicians. Such was the splendour of this deposed king's harem and estates, in 1874, as described by Mr. James Routledge, in his volume on "English Rule and Native Opinion in India."
"And all this House of love was peopled fair With sweet attendance, so that in each part With lovely sights were gentle faces found, Soft speech and willing service; each one glad To gladden, pleased at pleasure, proud to obey; Till life glided beguiled, like a smooth stream. ****** "And night and day served there a chosen band Of nautch-girls, cup-bearers, and cymballers, Delicate, dark-browed ministers of love, Who fanned the sleeping eyes of the happy Prince, And when he waked, led back his thoughts to bliss With music whispering through the blooms, and charm Of amorous songs and dreamy dances, linked By chime of ankle-bells and wave of arms And silver-vina-strings; while essences Of musk and champak, and the blue haze spread From burning spices, soothed his soul again."
​The "sheltered life," so enthusiastically commended by my lady friend, is, of course, very alluring to many women when lived under such luxurious conditions as those related in Sir Edwin Arnold's poem. Numbers of women in the West would enjoy this indolent, secure, and voluptuous existence.
As a matter of fact, there are American women living in Indian zenanas. They have renounced the Christian faith, embraced Hinduism, and become entirely Oriental in their lives and practices. I know an English professional dancer, who informed me that several friends, in her profession, have entered Turkish harems. One of these girls describes the life as "delightful." She is richly fed, beautifully dressed, and has an ample income and her own apartments. This immunity from the strife of maintaining life appeals powerfully to women of a fairly numerous class. They desire neither "economic independence," nor "emancipation." In the West they marry for; comfort and ease in the East they welcome the chance of entering the harem.
Let us understand quite clearly that polygamous marriage in the Indian Empire is chiefly the practice of the influential and wealthy classes, and that it is far from general, even amongst the rich Mohammedans and Brahmins. The soudras (working class of low castes) and the poorer folk are almost entirely ​monogamous. But it is a monogamy differing essentially from that of Christian countries.
The legal and religious single marriage of England is an enduring link that can only be severed by divorce. Legal separation is an incomplete dissolution, inasmuch as the sundered persons cannot enter into marriage. In Catholic nations the tie is still more difficult to loosen. In India divorce is easy. You may, if you choose, engage in a succession of monogamous unions, without forfeiting social esteem, or infringing the principles of your creed.
Facility of divorce does not tend naturally to inconstancy, in spite of all that is said to the contrary by those who oppose it. In Burma, for example, divorce is a simple and speedy process; but such separation between the married is rare. There is a reason for this comparative rarity of divorce in the East, and especially among the upper classes. When a man has four legal wives, and a number of secondary spouses, entirely at his disposal, he is apt to overlook, or to deal leniently with, the faults of one of his chief wives.
A discontented husband, under the monogamic sway, sometimes seeks love, or the gratification of sexual passion, outside of the home. Often he maintains a second house, and lives a double life, or he frequents the company of demi-mondaines. There ​is a high scarcity value in sex in the West. This is almost unknown in the East, where everyone is enjoined to marry. If one wife in the harem is fractious and unmanageable, there are three others who may be amiable and amenable. There is no strong incentive to wander. Besides, has not a rajah a troupe of dancing girls and slaves as well? All of these dependents are at his command.
The Eastern servant has no higher ambition than to become an ikbal, or favourite, of her master. She ceases then to be a serf; she has a status, rights, and property of her own. When she bears a child, she is for ever a free woman. She can enforce her master to maintain her and the children. If she becomes a wife, and the husband desires to disavow her, he is bound to make her a substantial allowance for life.
Divorce may be easy, but responsibility does not end with mere repudiation of a wife. It is a tax upon a rajah's income when he has to support a number of divorced wives and their families. Therefore, though total separation is apparently facile under polygamy, it is not quite so simple as it seems at first glance.
In a case of dissolution of marriage, a man must prove that his wife has been guilty of one or more of the following offences: Adultery, disobedience, bad temper. Ill health is a cause for divorce, and so is barrenness. If a woman gives birth only to female ​infants during ten years, the husband may discharge her. But on whatever pretext, and through whatever fault, a woman is divorced, she has always a claim for proper maintenance.
In the ancient days in India, plurality of wives was far commoner than at the present time. Among the Hindu religionists it is not usual to find two women living as the wives of one man. The people of India are not generally polygamous in the strict sense. Polygamy is the privilege of the rich, but many of the wealthy are married to only one wife. This fact must be recognised, for there are people in Great Britain and America who refer to the polygamy of Indians as though the whole nation practised this form of marriage.
Polygamy is allowed by religion, law, and public opinion. The great Dasaratha, the father of Rama, was said to own 60,000 women. Kings, princes, and noble personages used to maintain large harems. Every woman, from the favourite wife to the lowest slave-girl, might be the sexual consort of her lord if he so desired. There was the fullest outlet for the variety impulse of affluent men.
Sivaji, the Maharajah, married as many as eighteen women in a single day. This was, however, due to a curious error. The ruler wished a wife for himself, and partners for some of his courtiers. A number of ​beautiful maidens were selected, and brought to the palace under the misapprehension that they were all destined to share the great man's favour. Upon discovering their mistake, the girls broke into lamentations and displayed the utmost disappointment. Sivaji, being a chivalrous and kindly man, thereupon determined to marry the whole bevy of virgins.
An understanding of the Indian character is impossible unless we appreciate the great importance that eroticism plays in the life of the East. In England the average man, and the great mass of women, fear voluptuousness almost as they fear sin. Climate has some influence in this alleged indifference to sensual pleasure; but religion and tradition have probably a much weightier sway. We know perfectly well that almost every conceivable form of gross sensuality is practised among the Northern and the Western races. But we lift our eyes piously, and affect horror at legalised polygamy, a time-honoured religious form of marriage in the East, permitted by a noble reformer, the Prophet Mohammed, and by the great spiritual teachers of Hinduism.
Uncontrolled indulgence is without question disastrous to the individual and the race. Let us not, however, fall into the error of assuming that the Oriental attitude towards sex, with its frankness, and joyous acceptation of all that is good in the ​physical expression of love, is of the same quality as the cold lasciviousness and obscenity that so often distinguishes Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon ideas of sexual passion.
Phallicism reverenced sex as a symbol of the whole of life, of increase, and of good. To-day men mock ignorantly at the images and signs of this ancient cult. There is a deplorable tendency to confuse beautiful symbols with the vulgar pornography of corrupt modern cities. Such vulgarity is foreign to the Eastern mind. Freedom of conversation does not necessarily spell indecency, though imperfectly educated people in the West seem to think so. Christianity, as expounded by the Fathers and the ascetic saints, besmirched love and sex so completely and ruthlessly that we have never succeeded in cleansing our thoughts upon the great and solemn motor-force of the world.
The Oriental may be in some cases too much preoccupied with the physical phases of sex-love. At all events, his preoccupation is open and avowed, and not concealed, and hypocritically denied. Behind all this interest in love, there is a deep esteem for the procreative power, whence springs most, if not indeed all, of the nobler human aspirations and virtues.
What may be called justly a sanction for a culti​vated eroticism is to be found in the religious creeds of the Eastern world.
Hindu sacred writings do not leave out of account the relations of the sexes. They contain explicit teaching upon the bodily conjugal rites, often expressed in beautiful and reverential phrases. Nothing could be purer, more lofty and poetical, than some of the counsels to husbands and wives, to fathers and mothers. Several writers on Indian life refer to "indecent pictures" on the walls of temples. One of these observers is, however, bound to admit that the paintings are "not licentious." The average traveller does not stay to inquire into the symbolism of such pictures. He immediately associates them with Western ideas of propriety and concludes that their sole purpose is to amuse or to shock. This is a very ignorant appraisement. It recalls the furtive chuckle of a lout in the contemplation of a superb painting of a nude figure in one of our public museums.
Polygamy is closely connected with the sacred erotic conceptions of the Eastern mind. Woman in India is beloved and desired, as she is in England, for her physical grace and loveliness, as well as for her virtue, sweetness, and gentleness of heart. She is a symbol, a principle, a half-divine being. There is magic in her. Endless are the taboos surrounding her sex. The curse of a woman is terrible. Her kiss is a ​benediction to the warrior. She is exalted as a goddess. As Sakti, representing the female principle, she is deeply revered and loved.
These facts should cause us to reconsider all our preconceived notions about "the degradation of the Eastern woman." Let us try earnestly to comprehend the Hindu point of view regarding women. In all parts of the world woman stands for the Incomprehensible, the mysterious. "Souvent femme varie" has given rise to a fervent, bewildered, masculine attention. The Hindus, perhaps more than any other race, have shown a great curiosity and awe concerning the female sex. Woman is highly susceptible to religious ecstasy. She is a stoical martyr under such stimulus. Her nervous organisation and her sex function cause weird manifestations.
Under certain conditions her touch is baneful; at others it is beneficent. According to a primitive legend woman was stung by a snake, and has never recovered from the sting. Maternity invested her with something mysterious, which must be deeply respected. In ancient times, she was the most fitting of human sacrifices to the gods.
* ↑ The term zenana is derived from the Persian zan, meaning woman.
* ↑ "The Light of Asia."—Sir Edwin Arnold.