impurity of a woman's heart; codes and customs began to bind
her with chains easy to forge and hard to break. Later followed the
catastrophe that completed the change. The Himalayan gateways opened
once more and through them swarmed a new race of invaders, passing out
of those barren plains of Central Asia that have been ever the breeding
grounds of nations and swooping upon India's treasures. In one hand the
green flag of the Prophet, in the other the sword, these followers of
Muhammad sealed for a millennium the end of woman's high estate.

All was not lost without a mighty struggle.[7] From those days come the
tales of Rajput chivalry--tales that might have been sung by the
troubadours of France. Rajput maidens of noble blood scorned the throne
of Muslim conquerors. Litters supposed to carry captive women poured out
warriors armed to the teeth. Men and women in saffron robes and bridal
garments mounted the great funeral pyre, and when the conquering
Allah-ud-din entered the silent city of Chitore he found no resistance
and no captives, for no one living was left from the great Sacrifice of
Honorable Death.

After that came an end. Everywhere the Muhammadan conqueror desired many
wives; in a far and alien land his own womankind were few. Again and
again the ordinary Hindu householder, lacking the desperate courage of
the Rajput, stood by helpless, like the Armenian of to-day, while his
wife and daughter were carried off from before his eyes, to increase the
harem of his ruler. Small wonder that seclusion became the order of the
day--a woman would better spend her life behind the purdah of her own
home than be added to the zenana of her conqueror. Later when the throes
of conquest were over and Hindu women once more ventured forth to a
wedding or a festival, small wonder that they copied the manners of
their masters, and to escape familiarity and insult became as like as
possible to women of the conquering race. Thus the use of the veil
began.

At that beginning we do not wonder; what makes us marvel is that a
repressing custom became so strong that, even after a century and a half
of British rule, all over North India and among some conservative
families of the South seclusion and the veil still persist. Walk the
streets of a great commercial town like Calcutta, and you find it a city
of men. An occasional Parsee lady, now and then an Indian Christian,
here and there women of the cooly class whose lowly station has