o make foolish marriages when they are too young. It was
never allowed in my village.'

'And if a young man fell in love with a girl?' I asked.

'He was told to leave her alone.'

'And if he didn't?'

'If he didn't, he was put in the stocks for one day or two days, and if
that was no good, he was banished from the village.'

A monk complained to me of the bad habits of the young men in villages.
'Could government do nothing?' he asked. They used shameful words, and
they would shout as they passed his monastery, and disturb the lads at
their lessons and the girls at the well. They were not well-behaved. In
the Burmese time they would have been punished for all this--made to
draw so many buckets of water for the school-gardens, or do some
road-making, or even be put in the stocks. Now the headman was afraid to
do anything, for fear of the great government. It was very bad for the
young men, he said.

All villages were not alike, of course, in their enforcement of good
manners and good morals, but, still, in every village they were enforced
more or less. The opinion of the people was very decided, and made
itself felt, and the influence of the monastery without the gate was
strong upon the people.

Yet the monks never interfered with village affairs. As they abstained
from state government, so they did from local government. You never
could imagine a Buddhist monk being a magistrate for his village, taking
any part at all in municipal affairs. The same reasons that held them
from affairs of the state held them from affairs of the commune. I need
not repeat them. The monastery was outside the village, and the monk
outside the community. I do not think he was ever consulted about any
village matters. I know that, though I have many and many a time asked
monks for their opinion to aid me in deciding little village disputes, I
have never got an answer out of them. 'These are not our affairs,' they
will answer always. 'Go to the people; they will tell you what you
want.' Their influence is by example and precept, by teaching the laws
of the great teacher, by living a life blameless before men, by
preparing their souls for rest. It is a general influence, never a
particular one. If anyone came to the monk for counsel, the monk would
only repeat to him the sacred teaching, and leave him to apply it.

So each village managed its own affairs, untroubled by squire or priest,
very little troubled by the state. That within th