Modern Hinduism: Being an Account of the Religion and Life of the Hindus.

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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: that this event has obtained the name of the Hundredfold- dreaded (Satasanka); and many of the friends, in making presents to the hostess, give them as farewell gifts. According to a Hindu proverb, the ordinary life of a woman being sedentary, and comparatively idle, is preferable to that of a man; the dread of motherhood, however, is regarded as an equivalent to the cares and toils of manhood, so that men are content with their lot and willing to remain men. It may here be mentioned that, excepting on these high days of festival, the Hindu wife, until her child is born, is under many restrictions respecting food, dress, movements, andc., and generally her fear of the dangers of the coming event is sufficiently great to lead her carefully to observe them. As a rule, a Hindu wife is not more than thirteen or fourteen years of age when her first child is born, sometimes she is even younger, and at such times is attended only by some ignorant person, who is quite unable to render her any real assistance when there may be special need. A skilled doctor save in the rarest cases, would not be admitted into a Hindu home; and when they have been sent for, attempts have been made to prevent them from seeing more than the hand and tongue of the patient. It occasions no surprise, therefore, that there should be great fear experienced by the young wife; the uncertainty whether she will survive the event being assigned as the reason for celebrating the festivals referred JjpJ-Amongst the many regulations imposed upon the wife for months before her child is born, the following may be mentioned. She must not wear any clothes over which birds have flown. She must always wear a knot in her dress (sari) where it is fastened round her waist. In order to avoid the contact of evil spirits, she must...