Note 35 — Chapter II

There can be no doubt whatever that the seclusion of women was the common practice in ancient India. Wherever polygamy exists the seclusion of women is a necessity, and that polygamy did exist in the India of the “Ramayana” is abundantly evident from what we are told concerning the courts of Dasahratha, Sugriva and Ravana. The Greeks kept their women a good deal in the background; but Helen’s position in the court of her husband Menelaus, or Penelope’s in that of Ulysses, was far more free than the position of any queen mentioned in the “Ramayana.”