la. The
Hindoos believe that when a person has lost his reason he is filled
with the spirit of God, and hence they always treat the insane with
respect and tender care.

This April heat makes it easy to realize the Hindoo proverb, which
says: "Never run when you may walk, never walk when you may stand
still, never stand when you may sit, never sit when you may lie down."

CHAPTER XXVI.

The Women of India--The Widows--The American Zenana--Prizes Awarded in a
Girl's School--Annandabai Joshee--Her Visit to America--Reports to the
Government--Departure from India--Burmah--Ceylon--Arabia--Cairo.

From our point of view the social condition of women in India is highly
deplorable. The women are not regarded as the equals of men, but rather
as an appendix to them. Their religion teaches that they have no
acknowledged rights as individuals, and that the only happiness they can
attain in this world and in the world to come is to become wives and
mothers of men, and that the more a woman sacrifices herself for man the
greater will be her reward in the future. If the man to whom she is
married dies, the remainder of her life is full of sorrow and suffering,
and it is only in the life hereafter that she can expect any happiness,
and that by being reunited with him.

This belief gave rise to the so-called "sati," or the custom to burn the
wife on her deceased husband's pyre in order that she might _at once_ be
reunited with him and enjoy salvation through him. "Sati" is now
prohibited by the English government, but every widow in India is still
doomed to a life of misery and degradation.

When we consider that polygamy is practiced to a very large extent among
the rich so that a man is allowed to have any number of wives, and
may keep on taking new wives as long as he lives, it may easily be
understood what a great number of widows there must be. There is an old
man, for example, who dies and leaves many widows of different ages,
some of them only ten or twelve years old, none of whom are allowed to
marry a second time. They are deprived of all ornaments, and compelled
to wear a very coarse, plain dress, to live on the plainest food, and
work hard for the man who inherits the property of the deceased husband,
and who is generally his brother or his son. This is the reason that
rich families have a large number of women in all ranks and conditions,
from the mistress of the house, which position is held b