Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-11-22


condition can fail TO the lot OF human be-
ings-slaves are princes compared to them
One man may leave twenty, fifty or a hun
dred of these child widows, for the
superstition is that only by these marriages
is there hope for these wre;ches. They are
not taught 10 read or write; knowledge is
kept from them, and the bGsest ignorance
is their lot. The birth of girl is cause Tor
the mother losing favor and suffering the
taunts and sneers and prosecutions of soci-
ETY., unless son has preceded the daugh-
ter. Should the son die the innocent
female babe is regarded as the cause and
henceforth her path is one of thorns. The
Proverbs of Hindus read
Never put your trust in women"
Woman is the chief gate to hell
What are letters to men-women."
" Woman is a great whirlpool of suspi-
cion, dwelling place of vices, hindrance
in the way of heaven"
What is cruel ?-the heart of viper.
What is more cruel ?-the heart of a
woman. What is cruelest OF all?-lhe
heart of sonless, penniless widow"
Ananta, Ramabai's father, gave her
eldest sister in childhood in marriage to a
boy. The lad, it was agreed, was 10 stay
and be educated in her home But his
parents took him away at once. lie grew
W q uuuGc, TIC SlIl IltO q DIlSul anu az
complished woman. Thirteen years after
the husband came TO claim his wife, a
stranger TO him. The parents hearts were
wrung with anguish the wife loathed the
worthless fellow and refused him. He
sued in a British Court, and as England has
agreed TO enforce the customs of India, or
not to interfere with them, the woman was
ordered to be given over to the man. For
tunately death soon relieved her from her
slavery.
The case of Rukhmabai excited all Eng
land, and brought from Max Muller that
spendid letter Of indignant protest in the
London Times August %, 1887. She was
betrothed as an infant to boy She was
brought up well, educated, refined, and
learned 10 despise social and religious
bigots. But her father died, and then came
the man she had never seen to claim her as
his wife. She resented the claim, holding
that as she was incapable of conserving in
infancy, there had been no valid mar
rage. The man sued. An English
Court gave her judgment. But the
bigots threatened England and rose up
in rage. The case went up on appeal and
it was sent back to be adjudged by Hindu
law. The woman went to State prison
rather than to live with the man she
loathcd. Her letter of profess, quoted by
Max Muller, is one of the most pitiful,
tragic and heart-stirring walls of woe and
bitter protests of innocence against outrage
that we have ever read.
Pundita Ramabai's plan, approved by
all judgments in America, is to estab-
fish schools for the child widows
where they may be taught self-helpful-
ness and TO support themselves; to educate
them without interfering with their re-
ligion. Thus they can be induced to leave
their slave-pens, which they can do if
there is refuge for them without fear of
abandoning the only hope of immortality
of which they have any knowledge. The
Christian who wants to turn them his way
first, fails because they are ignorant and
know nothing of his religion. Ramabai
plan is that OF common sense, and she be-
lieves thht in five or six years thousands of
these women can be educated and become
agencies for the rapid regeneration of
Hindu society.
What an appeal is hers? How well we
know what wonderful progress can be
made under education-and by the way
what rebuke to English society is this ap-
peal to Americans III behalf of the child
widows of India over whom an English
Queen Empress rules. All Ramabai wants
to do is to make her Brahman sisters free
to learn to work to help themselves, to read,
to write, to do as other free women may, to
become teachers, workers and deed doors
among their own and thus take away the
stigma that now attaches TO them Just as the
light of knowledge everywhere banishes
the night of error and wrong. 1t is fair to
say for England, however, that many noble
men and women, titled and not, are labor
ing with Ramabai. Thus, to the appeal of
Mary Carpenter, Parliament has estab-
lshed several schools for the women of
India, open to every caste. But they fail in
giving the high-caste widow any hope of
help if she abandons her relatives; forlorn,
penniless, with a single garment, and thai
upon her body, her head shaved, the object
OF scorn, what is she to look forward
to for sustenance, when the Eng
llsh scholarship guarantees her but
$40 or S25 a year for her support
Then, too, the rigors of caste must be re-
| spected in these cases, while in the En-
| glish schools the castles are mingled.
| Women doctors, too, are needed, and be-
cause of superstition and prejudice against
| the male doctor for the woman, the whole
| race OF Hindu women is degenerating by
| disease and its transmission, and conse-
quently the children born are grow
ing less in vigor and weaker in health.
Ramabai has translated our school books,
and studied the kindergarten system as
means to aid the great moral enterprise on
which she will enter on her arrival at Poo
nah in December. The guarantee of right
use of the means raised is in the association
named, and the co-operators among Hindu
gentlemen of integrity who constitute the
Indian branch of the executive boards.