Alexandria gazette & daily advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1817-1822, 1821-03-24

she lived till she attained The age when
India girls are manageable. A girl
in the house of Rajpoot was however,
SO extraordinary circumstance. that
no parent chose to permit his sun to
marry her. The father then became
alarmed for her chastity and the honor
Of his family, and lie therefore took
her aside one day, and with Ratchet
cut her to pieces! These are the cir
cumstances to which your Sex enter i'll
to life in British India.
In childhood and youth they have no
cducation, no cultivation Of any kind
whatever. There is not single girls
school in all India; and the mother,
being herself entirely unlettered, and
being the devoted victim Of dark and
cruel superstition, is utterly incapable
ofimproving her child. The first days
of the girl are, therefore. spent in An
inanity which prepares her for life
doomed to be spent in superstition anu
vice.
IN the age of comparative childhood
she is united in marriage, without any
knowledge of, or having seen her hus-
band; wnen they meet together for the
first time, the! are bound together for
life. Thousands. who arc thus mar
ried in state of childhood. lose their
husbands without having ever lived
with them, and are doomed to life of
widoWhood for the law forbids them
to re-marry. Parents. in some cases,
marry fit! or sixty daughters 10 one
Brahmun. that the family may be rails
ed to honor by a marriage relation to
this man. These females never live
with the husband, but in the houses of
their own parents, or they leave the
houses in which they have been thus
sacrificed for the supposed honor of the
family. and enter the abodes of infamy
and ruin.
Surprising the female. however, to
have been united to person who real.
ly becomes attached to her, what no
ther, without knowledge of the ALPHA
bet! wholly unacquainted with man
kind, and with all the employmcnts of
females in a civilized country unable
either to make, to mend or to wash the
clothes of her household She never
sits to eat with her husband, but pre-.
pares his food, waits upon him, par.
takes of what he leaves. If a friend,
of the other sex calls upon her husband,
she retires, She is yelled, or goes 10
covered palanquin, if she leaves the
house. She never mixes i'm public
company. She derives no knowledge
from the other sex. except from the
stories to which she may listen from
the mouth Of religious mendicant.-
She is, in fact, a mere animal, kept for
bur:hen or for slaughter, in the house
of her husband. A case lately occur
red inCalcutta. of girl being burnt a.
live on the funeral pile will, the dead
body Of the youth with whom she was
that day tn have been married. You
will be prepared now, ladies. to expect
thai such system of mental darkness
will have rendered the sex. in India the
devoted victims of idoialry; and such
victims no other country, however sa-
wage, however benighted, can boast
What must be the state of the female ,
mind. when millions are found throwing
the children Of their vows into the sea
when guard Of Hindoo soldiers are
necessary to prevent mothers throwing
their living children into the jaws of
the alligat"rs. these mothers standing
and watching the animal while it crush.
cS the bones. tears the flesh. and drinks
the blood of their own offspring! How
depl"rable tho condition Of your sex,
when superstition thus extinguishcs
every sensibility of the female and eve.
ry feeling of the mother. and makes
her more savage than the tiger which
bowls in the forest, which always spares
and cherishes lis own offspring.
At the calls of superstition, many
females immediate themselves BY vo.
luntary death in the sacred rivers of
India. A friend OF mine, at the Juno.
ton of the Jumma and the Gauges, of
Allahabad. in one morning saw, from
his own window, sixteen females, with
pans of water fastened to their sides.
sink themselves into the river, few
bubbles of air arising only to the sur.
face of the water after they were gone
down. The drowning Of so many kit.