There we have masculine selfishness in a nutshell.
Another maxim declares that a wife can atone for her lack or loss of
beauty by faithful subjection to her husband. And in return for all
the devotion expected of her she is utterly despised--considered
unworthy of an education, unfit even to profess virginity--in a word,
looked on "as scarcely forming a part of the human species." In the
most important event in her life--marriage--her choice is never
consulted. The matter is, as we have seen, left to the family barber,
or to the parents, to whom questions of caste and wealth are of
infinitely more importance than personal preferences. When those
matters are arranged the man satisfies himself concerning the
inclinations of the chosen girl's _kindred_, and when assured that he
will not "suffer the affront of a refusal" from _them_ he proceeds
with the offer and the bargaining. "To marry or to buy a girl are
synonymous terms in this country," says Dubois (I., 198); and he
proceeds, to give an account of the bargaining and the disgraceful
quarrels this leads to.
BAYADERES AND PRINCESSES AS HEROINES
Under such circumstances the Hindoo playwrights must have found
themselves in a curious dilemma. They were sufficiently versed in the
poetic art to build up a plot; but what chance for an amorous plot was
there in a country where there was no courtship, where women were
sold, ignored, maltreated, and despised? Perforce the poets had to
neglect realism, give up all idea of mirroring respectable domestic
life, and take refuge in the realms of tradition, fancy, or liaisons.
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