The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-07-22
Where Woman Is Kept AtHead
 Of Family
(By CAROLINE CRAWFORD)

EA nave worn the veil TOT many years and only few very modern ones have discarded it in late years and come out as new women with modern ideas, becoming lawyers and public speakers, there is and ai- ways has been, as far as history goes back, a tiny square in western India where women reign supreme-where they are boss, handle the purse strings, inherit the property on the female line and do not lose their daugh- ters and sons through matrimony, keep ing them safely at home even when Cupid has snatched them in wedlock.
 This perfect Utopia for women, ac- cording to Mrs. Ernest Thompson Seton, wife of the famous naturalist, is located in the western provinces of India known as the Malabar region. Mrs. Seton has just returned from six months tour of India which in- cluded playing with wild boars, tigers and roguish elephants in the jungle, interviewing Gandhi and living in the zenanas of native women. Naturally it was of the women we talked most when I saw her in her suite at the Colony club.
 Il wouln't really say these women live in Utopia," laughed Mrs. Seton, because while American women might envy them the privilege of keeping their married daughters and sons at home, l scarcely think they would like to live the way these women of India in this one little community do. For instance, while it is true they handle the purse strings and inherit the property on the feminine side, this sounds a great deal better than the conditions really are.
 ''In this section of India when a girl marries she immediately goes home to live with her family, while the man goes back to his people. They still live in their own clan and the husband only pays his wife a visit when she feels ready to receive him. Sometimes this visit lasts for only few days, sometimes it lasts for six months, but the man alway retains his legal resi- dence with his family, so that mother never loses her married sons or daughters.
 Now, in regard to the purse strings there is a family purse, and since family is a very large one with all the daughters and sons at home, including the children of the married daughters, the children or female of the family who holds the inheritance rights takes charge of the money end of matters"
 ''Then a bride has practically no say about it! I interposed. ''She hasn't even a husband to back her up, but has to go to her mother or some great aunt if she wants money for new dress for the baby or some powder for her nose."
 Mrs. Seton laughed. "It isn't as in- teresting as it might be, you see," she fnn hn ornT women don't have very much power until they come into the line of inheri- tance, and some, in the case of large families, may never be fortunate enough to do do this. The title to the property is always held by a man, but instead of leaving his property to his son there is a law that it should descend through the nearest female relative"
 Are these young wives as happy living at home with their families, with only an occasional visit from their husbands, as the girl who goss into her own little love nest, cooks in a two-by-four kitchen and learns to budget the table allowance given her weekly by her husband ?"'I asked.
 "No, don't think they are" re- piled Mrs. Seton. "As a matter of fact a number of divorces spring up from thAS arrangement anu IL IS uIlueESLUOu that wife in that section may divorce her husband just she is tired of him or because he bores her. This results in number of murders and a knife is frequently employed by a jealous hus- band who believes he is soon to be cast aside for a rival. I will say this, how ever. That the women have a great sense of morality and no wife is ever untrue to her husband. Perhaps the fact that she may obtain a divorce so easily accounts for this.'
 In describing the large family homes Mrs. Seton said Most of the houses are built very large to accommodate the many married daughters and sons who never leave the family threshold. The houses are made of stucco and are seldom more than two stories high, but they stretch around a large court. In the centre of this court there are picturesque banana trees, hedges, and always a Tulsi plant, which is sacred to the natives
 Mrs. Seton has been studying the lives and histories of women in many countries for several years. Her last books, Chinese Lanterns" "A Wom- an TenderfoOt in the Rockies" "Nim- rods Wife" and "A Tenderfoot in Egypt" all tell much of the woman's side of things. She intends to write new book on India and devote at least one-quarter of it to this little western community which gives the women the right of inheritance and their own say in divorce matters.