Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-04-13
IND[A'S CHILD WIDOWS.
THE UNHAPPY LIVES LED BY THE
 WOMEN OF THE EAST.

What . High Caste Hindoo Christian
 Woman Says of Her sisters-Betrothed
 in Their Infancy They Are Till Death
 the Slaves of Men.
 At All Souls church, the Pundita Barnabai. a high caste Hindoo Christian woman. gave an interesting address concerning her work in behalf of the child widows of India. The Pundita is a slender little woman with a low musical voice. She has a remarkable com mand of English She was attired in the simple white vestments of her people. She is endeavoring to raise sufficient money to enable her to maintain school in southern India for the instruction of Hindoo women.
 The picture that the Pundita drew of the condition of the Hindoo woman seemed to have strange interest for the hundreds of we'll dressed American women accustomed to theory of creation, the speaker explained, placed the women as procreative energy, the results of which have been sorrow and misery. The man therefore is the master and is without blame. It Is the duty of a good mother to get her daughter under the influence of male at once, for thereby is the females only salvation and hope for @ place in heaven It Is the custom. when children are mere infants, to promise them to youths for wives. When the girl is not yet in her teens she Is sent to the house of her prospective mother-in-law, who educates her with harsh measures and Q stick, impressing upon her her inferiority to the male. OAly men are allowed to study the philosophy of salvation, and a good wife on dying centers her thoughts on her husband, so that on her return to earth she may take the form of . man and study the philosophy that brings salvation.
 WHEN THE HUSBAND DIES.
 When the husband dies he does not let his thoughts revert to his wife other than in a feeling of pity for her loss, lest he, on re- turning, take step backward and assume the shape of a woman. A woman who does not find salvation through her husband will be compelled, should she continue in the fern of her sex, to be reincarnated S,4OO, ,OOO times. The domestic life of the Hindoo woman is confined in four walls, and the only opportunity she has of going outside is to draw water. She rises and remains standing when her husband enters the house and seats himself. The husband can avail himself of the privilege of bathing himself in the sacred river, but she, because of her domestic imprisonment, being debarred from making the journey, can enjoy only the ex- quisite pleasure of bathing his feet after he has been swimming and then drink the water. The power of the husband is abso- lute. He can doom his wife to hell if he be in the mood, as he is endowed with the power of god. A faithful widow worships her dead husband as if he were present in the flesh. Study makes the women skepti- cal, hence they are jealously debarred from it as violation of orthodoxy.
 Missionary work cannot accomplish the disenthrallment of these women," said the Pundita; Git must be done through educa- tion. So far as my experience goes think that it is next to impossible for missionaries to reach the orthodox people, as they are called. There are some men who are at first educated in western ideas, especially the Brahmas, who will allow Christian mission. ary to visit the women of their household, but most of them do it because they want the women to be little educated, and since they have no female teachers of their own they are obliged to invite Christian women; but have known the men, while they allow a Christian missionary to visit their wives, to strictly command their wives not to accept any religious ideas, and thus placed the poor woman in the plight of being compelled to obey her husband, and at the same time read her Bible. If she is sometimes convinced, she has no power to accept the Christian faith publicly. This renders her situation doubly miserable. ."-New York World.