[267] The London Times of November 11, 1889, had the following in its column about India: 

“Two shocking cases of wife killing lately came before the courts, in both cases the result of child marriage.  In one a child aged ten was strangled by her husband.  In the second case a child of tender years was ripped open with a wooden peg.  Brutal sexual exasperation was the sole apparent reason in both instances.  Compared with the terrible evils of child marriage, widow cremation is of infinitely inferior magnitude.”

[268] Manu’s remark that “where women are honored there the gods are pleased” is one of those expressions of unconscious humor which naturally escaped him, but should not have escaped European sociologists.  What he understands by “honoring women” may be gathered from many maxims in his volume like the following (the references being to the pages of Burnell and Hopkins’s version): 

     “This is the nature of women, to seduce men here” (40);

     “One should not be seated in a secluded place with a
     mother, sister, or daughter; the powerful host of the
     senses compels even a wise man” (41).

     “No act is to be done according to (her) own will by a
     young girl, a young woman, or even by an old woman,
     though in (their own) houses.”

“In her childhood (a girl) should be under the will of her father; in (her) youth, of (her) husband; her husband being dead, of her sons; a woman should never enjoy her own will” (130).

     “Though of bad conduct or debauched, or even devoid of
     good qualities, a husband must always be worshipped
     like a god by a good wife.”

     “For women there is no separate sacrifice, nor vow, nor
     even fast; if a woman obeys her husband, by that she is
     exalted in heaven” (131).

     “Day and night should women be kept by the male members
     of the family in a state of dependence” (245)....

     “Women being weak creatures, and having no share in the
     mantras, are falsehood itself” (247).

Quite in the spirit of these ordinances of the great Manu are the directions for wives given in the Padma Purana, one of the books of highest authority, whose rules are, as Dubois informs us (316), kept up in full vigor to this day.  A wife, we read therein, must regard her husband as a god, though he be a very devil.  She must laugh if he laughs, eat after him, abstain from food which he dislikes, burn herself after his death.  If he has another wife she must not interfere, must always keep her eyes on her master, ready to receive his commands; she must never be gloomy or discontented in his presence; and though he abuse or even beat her she must return only meek and soothing words.

[269] In Calcutta nearly one-half the females—­42,824 out of 98,627—­were widows.  In India in general one-fifth of the women (or, excluding the Mohammedans, one-third) are widows.