Polygamy in India is certainly now hiding itself.  A couple of generations ago it was practised wholesale by the kulin brahmans of Bengal.  Several middle-aged kulins are known to have had more than 100 wives, and to have spent their lives in a round of visits to their numerous fathers-in-law.  For each wife they had received a handsome bridegroom-price.  So declares the last Census Report.  Except among Indian Mahomedans, who have the sanction of the Koran and the example of the Prophet himself, there are now few upholders of polygamy in India.  In a meeting of educated gentlemen in Calcutta a Mahomedan lately protested against some passing condemnatory reference to polygamy, on the ground that in a general meeting he expected that his religion would be free from attack.  A learned Mahomedan judge, on the other hand, writes that among Indian Mahomedans “the feeling against polygamy is becoming a strong social if not a moral conviction.”  “Ninety-five out of every 100 are either by conviction or necessity monogamists.”  “It has become customary,” he tells us, “to insert in the marriage deed a clause by which the intending husband formally renounces his supposed right to contract a second union."[26]

[Sidenote:  Seclusion of women.]

With regard to the seclusion of women, at some points the custom seems to be slowly yielding to Western ideas, although it is still practically true that Indian ladies are never seen in society and in the streets of Indian cities.[27] A different evolution, however, is still more manifest at this present time.  It almost seems as if at first modern life were to bend to the custom of the seclusion of women rather than bend the custom to itself.  The Lady Dufferin Association for Medical Aid to Indian Women is bringing trained medical women into the zenanas and harems, and every year is also seeing a larger number of Indian Christian and Br[=a]hma ladies set up as independent practitioners, able to treat patients within the women’s quarters.  In the year 1905 a lady lawyer, Miss Cornelia Sorabjee, a Parsee Christian lady, was appointed by the Government of Bengal to be a legal adviser to the Bengal Court of Wards, or landowning minors.  Zenana or harem ladies, e.g. the widowed mothers of the minors, would thus be able to consult a trained lawyer at first hand within the zenana or harem.  Missionaries are discussing the propriety of authorising certain Christian women to baptize women converts within the zenanas.[28] Long ago missions organised zenana schools, and now native associations have begun to follow in their steps.  In all Indian Christian churches, women of course are present at public worship, but they always sit apart from the men, a segregation even more strictly followed by the Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j or Indian Theistic Association.  For the sake of zenana women, the Indian Museum in Calcutta is closed one day each week to the male sex, and in some native theatres there is a ladies gallery in which ladies may see and not be seen behind a curtain of thin lawn.  Movement even towards a compromise, it is good to observe.