Richard
Schmidt, who did his work in behalf of the Kgl. Akademie der
Wissenschaften zu Berlin, felt it incumbent on him to turn more than
fifty pages out of four hundred and seventy into Latin. Yet the author
of this book, who lived about two thousand years ago, recommends that
every one, including young girls, should study it. In India, as his
French translator, Lamairesse, writes, "everything is done to awaken
carnal desires even in young children of both sexes." The natural
result is that, as the same writer remarks (186):
"Les categories des femmes faciles sont si nombreuses
qu'elles doivent comprendre presque toutes les personnes du
sexe. Aussi un ministre protestant ecrivait-il au milieu de
notre siecle qu'il n'existait presque point de femmes
vertueuses dans l'Inde."
The Rev. William Ward wrote (162) in 1824:
"It is a fact which greatly perplexes many of the
well-informed Hindus, that notwithstanding the wives of
Europeans are seen in so many mixed companies, they
remain chaste; while their wives, though continually
secluded, watched, and veiled, are so notoriously
corrupt. I recollect the observation of a gentleman who
had lived nearly twenty years in Bengal, whose opinions
on such a subject demanded the highest regard, that the
infidelity of the Hindu women was so great that he
scarcely thought there was a single instance of a wife
who had been always faithful to her husband.
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