The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-02-15 00:00:00

INDIAN HOME LIFE.

Professor Monier Williams gave a lecture on Monday at
the London Institution on the subject of "Indian Home
Life." •

The lecturer said that home life in India—he had
reference solely to Hindoos, not Mohammedans—
was intimately interwoven with caste and religion ;
caste, custom, and religion were almost convertible
terms, and every man found himself curbed in all he
did by the most minute regulations. The lecturer de-
scribed many of the religious observances and
domestic manners and customs of high-caste Hindoos;
and, speaking of religious belief and marriage,
he said :—Hindoos believed that the soul had
three bodies—one, a material or gross body,
which was burnt after death; the second, a body
which rose with the soul from the funeral pyre,
and accompanied it through its innumerable exist-
ences ' • and the third, an intermediate body with
which the soul was invested during its intermediate
condition of happiness or of misery, before its re-
appearance in another gross body on the earth. The
intermediate body required to be refreshed by food,
which was offered to it by sons or grandsons. The
most important event, therefore, in Indian home life
was the birth of a son, and a wife was a person of very
slight value except in her character of mother.
Daughters were but little regarded. A son was
to every Hindoo the first and last of all neces-
sary things. When a son was born the family
priest was sent for, and the process of regene-
rating the child went on, one of the ceremonies, ac-
companied with prayers, being that of feeding him
with honey and clarified butter. The family astrologer
also drew up the record of the child's nativity, and
wrote a prophecy of his life. When a boy was five
years old he was betrobhed, a professional matchmaker
being employed, On his initiation into the Hindoo
faith he was invested with a three-fold cotton cord,
which symbolised the trinities of the Hindoo religion,
and was a mark that the person wearing it was "twice
born," that he had been born again, regenerated.
As soon as he had been made regenerate, his re.
ligious life began. Englishmen were, in the
opinion of orthodox Hindoos, unregenerate and un-
clean, and their very touch wailobelieved to defile.
After the nuptial ceremony a boy returned without his
bride to his father's house, but at the age of 15 or 16
he was allowed to live with his child wife. He (Pro-
fessor Williams) had at Indian high schools and col-
'egos often examined boys, half of whom were fathers.
Early marriages were the curse of India. The
condition of Hindoo girls was one of hopeless
ignorance; they were unable to read, they were
never-taught rules of health, or the most elementary
truths of science. A feeling prevailed that a girl
who had learned to read had committed a sin which
would bring down a judgment on her or her hus-
band. A young widow had practically no existence;
an old widow was cared for by her children; but a
young childless widow was regarded as worse than
dead. She might not marry again (a man would
marry again eleven or twelve days after the death of
his wife); she was supposed to be in perpetual
mourning for her dead husband, although she might
never have seen him except at her child wedding;
and she was a houselaald drudge.