Note 27 — Chapter XV · CARICATURES OF WOMEN AND MATRIMONY.

Older than the Jewish liturgy are the sacred books of the Hindoos. The famous passage of the "Padma Parana," translated by the Abbé Dubois,[27] has been part of the domestic code of the Hindoos for thousands of years. According to the Hindoo lawgiver, a woman has no god on earth but her husband, and no religion except to gratify, obey, and serve him. Let her husband be crooked, old, infirm, offensive; let him be irascible, irregular, a drunkard, a gambler, a debauchee; let him be reckless of his domestic affairs, as if possessed by a devil; though he live in the world without honor; though he be deaf or blind, and wholly weighed down by crime and infirmity—still shall his wife regard him as her god. With all her might shall she serve him, in all things obey him, see no defects in his character, and give him no cause of uneasiness. Nay, more: in every stage of her existence woman lives but to obey—at first her parents, next her husband and his parents, and in her old age she must be ruled by her children. Never during her whole life can she be under her own control.