Los Angeles herald., 1906-12-09
To AID CHILO
WIVES Of INDIA
MRS. S. A. MERRITT REPLIES
TO LECTURE
Describes Pitlful Condition of Little
Hindoo Children Who Must Be
, Married Before Their
Twelfth Year

Baba BharattPs recent lecture on the
condition of women in the west as com
pared with the state of their eastern
sisters has called forth n very strenu-
Gus remonstrance from the Indo-Amer-
lean Women's Restoration league, This
society has large branches in Chicago.
New York, Buffalo, Denver, Boston and
many other large eastern cities, and
Is striving to form a league i'm India
which shall so expose the present de-
plorable state of child-wives I'm that
country that the matter will be brought
to the attention of the English authori-
ties and from them to the king him
self. Mrs. S. A. Merritt, who is con-
nected with the work here, answers
the Baba in the following articles:
Mrs. Merritt Replies
I'm The Herald of November 10 there
was given a synopsis of a lecture by
Baba Bharati on Women, East and
West in which he compared the
women of the west unfavorably with
those of the east. We shall not waste
space by talking for the western
woman. for she has an intellect and
e spirit of her own given her by the
one God, and she has not lost her in
tuition She is admired, loved and
protected by her western brother who
is rapidly learning that an equality
OF plane for man and woman is con-
ducive to true comradeship and there
fore happiness.
How is it with our little sisters in
the far east? The lecturer says The
degradation of the women of the east
is myth born of the VESTS profound
ignorance of the inner life of the east,
and Is partly attributed to the misrep-
resentations of that amiable friend of
ours, the Christian missionary
Hideous Slavery of Children
"The western world is not wholly
ignorant of the Zenana and its hideous
slavery, not of women, but of children.
child-wives ranging in age from 6 to
II years. For girl not to be married
before the age of IL is to be ostracised
from her caste, not only the child her
self but the entire family. This is true
of every caste from the highest to the
lowest.
These little ones are said to have
no souls, and their only hope of heaven
is through the intervention of man or
by the burning of their bodies on the
funeral pyre beside their dead hus-
bands or by the birth of sons. If they
have daughters or become widows,
none know so well as the men of India
of the unspeakable lives of these poor
children.
How can spirituality or intellec-
tuality' enter the lives of such? They
are only suffering and agonizing little
child-widows. 1t is only the 'nantch
girl who is permitted to grow UP tc
learn independence. and these are
women of questionable character-dan.
cling girls, necessary class set apar
for the entertainment of men. Thi
phase of orientalism has already
reached our own eastern cities.
THE kind hearts of these 'amiab bic
Christian missionaries are fairly bleed
ing with anguish for the little ones oi
India, and for the awful thralldom
under which this strange custom holds
and pollutes them.
"The fame of Pundila Ramabai and
her home and school in Poonah, near
Bombay, is worldwide. She has about
1000 girls, most of them widows-an-
other horrible result of child-mar-
riage.
Much Assistance from America
"Some hundreds of dollars were
raised in this country by women who
worked to assist her in founding this
home. Such names as Edward Everett
Hale, Rev. Phillips Brooks, Miss Fran
els Willard, Rev. Lyman Abbott and
others are among those who gave as
sistance and became officers of the
Ramabai association in Boston
THE prince of Baroda, who so re-
Gently travelled throughout the United
States in search of new methods
adaptable to his country, was the first
to propose legislation for raising the
age of marriage in India, as he real
lied the present conditions are inhu-
man in the extreme.
Reference can be made to many
books of unquestionable authority on
the condition of the child-wives of In
dia, but mention need be made to only
one, The Penal Code of India Under
the Code of Criminal Procedure in the
Amendment of 1882 the following is
set forth His excellency the governor
of India presiding, with the Hon. Sir
Andrew Scoble, V. c., standing for the
child-wife and asking the aid of legis-
lation that the enormities under dis
cussion should no longer be heaped
upon the helpless children, cited sew
eral instances. One quoted was as fol-
lows: "I would invite the attention of
the council to the terrible account
submitted by Mrs. Mansell and other
women doctors of cases which had
come under their personal observation.
Little girl wives aged from to II
years who died, became paralyzed or
verely injured as the result of prema-
ture marriage"
Woman's Degradation in India
att is only in Christian lands de-
clares Mrs. S. X. Taylor, that women's
rights are recognized. In heather
lands she has no rights. But it is in
India that she sinks to the lowest pos
sible depths of degradation. Sold in
infancy to man or boy who looks
upon her as an inferior animal, taught
that she is without soul, subjected to
all kinds Of cruelty. starved, deceived,
beaten, branded with hot iron, neglect
ed i'm sickness and despised in health,
and hated at all times, she spends ker
life in an agony of fear and terror and
physical suffering unrelieved by one
ray of hope for relief either in this life
or In the next.
"There are 99,7OO,OOO women under
British rule in India, and several more
under Mohammedan and Hindoo rule,
and of all that vast number not half
a million can read or write their own
names, and when we ask the husbands
consent to teach his wife he tells us
that If she was taught, the gods would
be so angered as to cause his death,
and as self-preservation is deeply root
ed In the heart, he refuses"