This will reduce woman to her true and natural position as
a subordinate being; and the _lady_--that monster of European
civilization and Teutonico-Christian stupidity--will disappear from
the world, leaving only _women_, but no more _unhappy women_, of whom
Europe is now full.
In India, no woman is ever independent, but in accordance with the law
of Mamu,[1] she stands under the control of her father, her husband,
her brother or her son. It is, to be sure, a revolting thing that a
widow should immolate herself upon her husband's funeral pyre; but it
is also revolting that she should spend her husband's money with her
paramours--the money for which he toiled his whole life long, in the
consoling belief that he was providing for his children. Happy are
those who have kept the middle course--_medium tenuere beati_.
[Footnote 1: Ch. V., v. 148.]
The first love of a mother for her child is, with the lower animals as
with men, of a purely _instinctive_ character, and so it ceases when
the child is no longer in a physically helpless condition. After that,
the first love should give way to one that is based on habit and
reason; but this often fails to make its appearance, especially where
the mother did not love the father.
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