■ ■ ■ ■ 
 
 India’s Womanhood I 
 
 m 
 
India’s Womanhood 
 
 REV. J. P. JONES, D. D. 
 
 For thirty- five years a Missionary of the American Board 
 in India 
 
 Woman’s Board of Missions of the Interior 
 (Congregational) 
 
 Room 1315, 19 South La Salle St., Chicago 
 
 1915 
 
 Price, Five Cents 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/indiaswomanhoodOOjone 
 
INDIA’S WOMANHOOD 
 Rev. J. P. Joxes, D. D. 
 
 India has been pre-eminently the land of the deified 
 custom. Her eager eyes have been turned toward the 
 past and upon her favorite altars was inscribed her watch- 
 word “To the ancient gods of my fathers.” But she has 
 now joined the rest of the world in eager quest after the 
 new, the untried, the alluring future. Her bark has left 
 its ancient mooring and has entered the troubled current 
 of modern life and ambition. 
 
 Not long ago [Matthew Arnold wrote of India: 
 
 “The East bowed down beneath the blast 
 In patient, deep disdain ; 
 
 It let the legions thunder past. 
 
 And plunged in thought again.” 
 
 These sentiments of the English poet are now remi- 
 niscent of antiquity. The “East” is now pushing for- 
 ward, and is expressing with Germany its ambition “to 
 find a place in the sun.” In other words, progress is now 
 inscribed upon her new banner. In nothing is India’s 
 changed condition more marked than in its attitude 
 towards its women. Its many tongued proverbs abun- 
 dantly reflect its former deep rooted distrust and con- 
 tempt of, and cruel injustice towards its womanhood. 
 
 “What is the chief gate to hell? — Woman.” 
 
 “A man is a fool who considers his wife as his friend.” 
 
 “To educate a woman is like putting a knife in the 
 hands of a monkey.” 
 
 These proverbs are expressive not of the inferiority of 
 
 Page three 
 
Beyond the Home no sphere of opportunity 
 WAS open to her 
 
the woman, but of the contemptible mind of the man of 
 India. As a matter of principle and policy, woman has 
 been kept in grossest ignorance. The knowledge of the 
 most sacred religious books of her faith was denied her. 
 She was deprived of all the blessings of education with 
 its broadening and elevating influence. Only seven in 
 one thousand women, even today, are able to read and 
 write. The duties of maternity were thrust upon her 
 in early girlhood 5 'ears before she was prepared for them 
 ph 3 'sically or mentally. She was compelled prematurely 
 to enter upon the duty and responsibility of home making. 
 Beyond the home no sphere of culture, of influence, or 
 of opportunity was offered or permitted to her. 
 
 Above all she has been cursed, even in earliest infancy, 
 with matrimony and widowhood. Some children are con- 
 ditionally married to each other even before they are 
 born! A Hindu father is enjoined by his faith to marry 
 all his daughters before they attain puberty. As a conse- 
 quence of this there are now in India 100,000 child 
 widows — beautiful, innocent girls whose life is cursed 
 by this cruel inhuman custom. 
 
 In view of this is it strange that some years ago in 
 a community of 30,000 Rajputs, in North India, not one 
 girl was to be found ? 
 
 In a small village school which I conducted, there 
 were three little girls in the infant class, aged seven, eight 
 and nine respectively. All were Brahmans and were 
 married, and one was a widow. One of the theological 
 students whom I graduated from the Theological Seminary 
 three j^ears ago was married to a beautiful, tmung wife, 
 who was well educated, and deeply pious and bright in 
 the joy of her Christian faith and its service. But she, 
 when she was two j^ears old, and a sister one t'ear older, 
 were married the same day to an old uncle. It was, their 
 parents thought, the only hope of marrjdng both of them. 
 
 Page five 
 
The uncle husband died a jear later, and the two infant 
 wives became widows ! This younger sister was picked 
 up as an outcaste by one of our missionary ladies, was edu- 
 cated in her boarding school, became a Christian, and 
 was as a young woman married to the young man, my 
 student, who himself was a convert from heathenism. 
 His mother, who still remains a Hindu, never ceases 
 mourning that her boy should have married “a widow;” 
 and is not “her present continued childlessness,” she says, 
 “a punishment to both for so unnatural a marriage!” 
 
 When the securing of a husband for her child daugh- 
 ter is so difficult and often impossible, many a mother 
 has even dedicated her infant, at its birth, to become a 
 “wife of one of the gods,” which is Hindu euphemism 
 for prostitution. Many thousands of these more than 
 unfortunate women are, in the name and by the command 
 of their religion, a curse of, and a curse to, that faith 
 and people. 
 
 This is the blighted and the doomed womanhood of 
 India — blighted by ancient, false religious conceptions, 
 and doomed to the perpetual bondage of a cursed custom 
 and limitation. 
 
 It is almost a miracle that the woman of that country 
 has not, under such cruel limitations, become absolutely 
 debased and unworthy. But she has not. She has main- 
 tained her virtue and integrity and the sweetness of her 
 womanly nature to a wonderful degree. She is the great 
 redeeming feature of that country and people. In her 
 ignorance and limited sphere she has learned contentment; 
 she even loves the fetters of her bondage. 
 
 Is she not welcome at her birth? She soon wins by 
 her smiles and winsome ways a large place in the parental 
 heart and becomes the pet of the home. Her ignorance 
 and the myriad follies and superstitions of her narrow 
 life are atoned for by her cheery prattle and pretty per- 
 
 Page six 
 
sonal charms. Though she is bound to the narrow sphere 
 of her home, yet she has built her throne upon the hearth 
 and rules husband and children with an iron rod. There 
 is no mother on earth who shapes and gives her impress 
 to the children in the home atmosphere as she does. If, 
 in her religious training and hopes, her destiny is linked 
 to and depends upon man, she sees to it that upon father, 
 husband and son her religious influence shall be great, 
 if not supreme. By her religious sincerity, her sweet, 
 simple, boundless devotion to her ancestral faith and gods, 
 she is today by far the greatest known force for the pres- 
 ervation of that religion. Hinduism would vanish in a 
 day were it not for the remarkable religious devotion and 
 sincerity of the woman of India. 
 
 Nor should it be supposed that she greatly feels the 
 cruelty and bitterness of her life limitations. Like the 
 prisoner of Chillon she has become reconciled to her con- 
 dition even if she does not love her chains. No one is a 
 greater obstacle than she to efforts now put forth for her 
 freedom and exaltation. She has even glorified her bond- 
 age and was distinctly unfriendly to her would be emanci- 
 pators. 
 
 Nor must it be thought that all the educated men of 
 India welcome the campaign for the greater rights and 
 privileges of their women. Even such a man as Rabin- 
 dranath Tagore resents the Western propaganda in behalf 
 of the woman of India and suggests that they might be 
 better employed in the work of directing and properly 
 locating and restraining their own women of the West. 
 Doubtless much of this feeling arises from the radical 
 differences which exist in the minds of the East and of 
 the West as to the true sphere and rights of woman. Still, 
 many of the best men of India are now agreed that the 
 prosperity of their native land must depend more than 
 ever upon the emancipation of their women from the many 
 
 Page seven 
 
The Dawn of a New Day of Promise. 
 
physical, social, intellectual and religious disabilities which 
 have cursed that country. 
 
 But today we behold, for her, the dawn of the new 
 day of promise, of blessing, and of power. 
 
 A couple of years ago I stood upon one of the spurs 
 of the great Himalyan range waiting for the dawn of the 
 day. The spur was only 8,500 feet high. I eagerly faced 
 the east awaiting the sunrise ; but the sun had not yet risen 
 above the horizon. While thus waiting for the new day, 
 I turned and looked behind me, and saw, forty miles in 
 the distance, the wonderful Kinchenjunga range which 
 towers nearly 20,000 feet above the spur on which we 
 were then standing, and was robed in a beautiful white 
 garb of eternal snow. To my surprise I saw that the sun 
 had already arisen and was pouring its golden rays upon 
 that range, and was transmuting it into a vision of beauty 
 and splendor. A hundred miles away and to the left of this 
 we could also see the sun-tipped cap of Mt. Everest, the 
 highest mountain peak on earth. It also was bathed in 
 the glorious sun-lit dawn. Presently for us too the sun 
 ascended above the horizon and we welcomed the initial 
 glory and splendor of a new day. And this was the har- 
 binger of the new day for all the plains and valleys of 
 India which just then were still resting in the gloom of 
 night. 
 
 This to me was a parable of the dawn of a new day of 
 opportunity and of blessing for the womanhood of India. 
 The sun is shining already upon the highest peaks of op- 
 portunity in that land, and the millions of that land, who 
 are in the valleys of darkness, of ignorance, and supersti- 
 tion are soon to be bathed in the sunlight of God’s own 
 day of blessing. 
 
 It is really the dawn of the Christian Sun of Righteous- 
 ness who is rising with healing in his wings for the women 
 of India. It is Christianity and Christ which are bring- 
 
 Page nine 
 
ing to the women of that land this new era of blessing 
 and of power. During the last century the Christian 
 propaganda has furnished to India the supreme dynamic 
 as also the method of the new movements towards wom- 
 an’s emancipation and glorious opportunity. And of all 
 these Christian influences none compares in effectiveness 
 to the example and heroic labors of the missionary women 
 of the West who, with so much of devotion and love, are 
 offering all their gifts of faith, of culture, and of service 
 upon the altar of the redemption of India’s womanhood. 
 Three thousand and two hundred of these noble women 
 of the Protestant West, (not to speak of the no less de- 
 voted Roman Catholic nuns) are today, by their life and 
 example, furnishing new ideals and a mighty impulse to 
 their Indian sisters, and showing to them the wonderful 
 possibilities of power which lie before them. They throw 
 a divine halo around the home and reveal the ever widen- 
 ing sphere of womanly service and loving sacrifice for 
 others. 
 
 What are some of the results of this Christian propa- 
 ganda for the women of that land? In the first place 
 they are receiving the vision of a new sphere of life and 
 opportunity. It is no longer necessary that woman should 
 find her influence confined to the home — an influence too 
 of ignorance and of ultra conservatism. There is today 
 placed before her a new and a wondrous opportunity of 
 domestic, social, cultural, and religious privilege in behalf 
 of her people. 
 
 Then the supreme worth of womanhood has been re- 
 vealed for the first time in that land. The people of India 
 are learning today, for the first time, that the position of 
 woman in the life of any country is the truest barometer 
 of that country’s position in the great life of the world. 
 They are learning today that woman is, after all, worthy 
 of the highest education. There is a great movement 
 
 Page ten 
 
Girls of West Street School, Palani. 
 
 There is a great movement toward the school-house for the girls of India. 
 
toward the school house for the girls of India. One mil- 
 lion of them are already members of the school popula- 
 tion. The school roll of these girls was increased by 
 100,000 last year. There are ten colleges for women 
 in India, three of which are Christian, and in all of which 
 more than one-third of the students are Christian women. 
 
 It must be remembered that the education of women 
 in India was initiated by and is largely the result of the 
 Protestant missionary effort; and it is but natural that 
 the Christian women of India should shine more than 
 others in this realm of opportunity and development. 
 Through the efforts of these Christian women, almost 
 the only women teachers now available for Hindu girls’ 
 schools are Christians. In the ^Madras Presidency one- 
 fifth of all school girls are Christians. One-tenth of all 
 the reading women of India are Christians. Out of 
 twenty thousand Indian women who understand English 
 in that Presidency, 18,200 are Christian, only one a Jain, 
 70 Mohammedan, and 1,700 Hindu! Think of the mar- 
 velous sweep of influence which this means for the wmmen 
 of India, and especially for the Christian women of that 
 land ! 
 
 There is also a new era of service now opening to 
 women. There are ten thousand Indian Protestant wom- 
 en, many of them of splendid educational equipment, and 
 all of deep, earnest piety, who are giving their whole time 
 to the missionary propaganda in connection with the 
 Protestant Church. Many of these women are the peers 
 of any of their sisters in any other land, both in equipment 
 of knowledge, and of faith and power. The idea that 
 woman can serve in any other than a menial capacity is 
 thus taught to India for the first time by the example of 
 these Christian women ; and their influence is reaching all 
 over the country and among the people of other faiths 
 too. In Bombay there was established recently a new 
 
 Page twelve 
 
Many Protestant Women are giving their time 
 TO Christian Work. 
 
institution called Seva Sadan, whose purpose is to train 
 Indian women of any and of all faiths for honorable 
 service among their sisters. This idea of high service by 
 woman is Christian ; but it is entering into the very fabric 
 and life of other faiths too. 
 
 Above all else, I have been inspired by the wonderful 
 progress, made during my 36 years’ experience in India, 
 in the development of the life and the opportunities of 
 the Christian women of that land. In every mission there 
 is found today a body of excellently trained and well 
 equipped Christian women who reveal the highest tt'pes 
 and noblest characteristics of our faith, and who are wield- 
 ing an influence far beyond anything that we realize in 
 the progress of the Kingdom of God in India; and I think 
 far bet'ond what the men of that country are wielding at 
 the present time. There is a growing body of distin- 
 guished Christian women who are reflecting a glory upon 
 the womanhood of that land, and who, by their example 
 and activities, are not only revealing the possibilities but 
 the marvelous powers of a consecrated Indian womanhood. 
 
 Consider a few of them onlv. 
 
 M iss Lilavati Singh, the educator, was a member of 
 the outcaste community, but beautified by the transcend- 
 ent graces of our religion, and adorned with a university 
 culture which gave her a wonderful charm of personality. 
 It was of this lady that Ex-President Harrison remarked, 
 as he presided at the Ecumenical Conference fifteen years 
 ago at New York City, “Ladies and gentlemen, if I had 
 had a million dollars, and had expended all of it on Mis- 
 sions, and if the only result of my investment had been 
 this lady I would have regarded my investment as having 
 been well made.” 
 
 Pundita Ramabai is a remarkable philanthropist. She 
 was a discouraged Brahman widow when God’s Spirit 
 touched her heart, t ears ago ; and she became a Christian 
 
 Page fourteen 
 
— verily a centre of power. With wonderful ability and 
 devotion she has given herself to the redemption of her 
 benighted little widowed sisters of India. In her great in- 
 stitution, where nearly 3,000 of these youth are being 
 trained for life and service, Ramabai has done far more 
 for the upbuilding of truth and righteousness, of love and 
 service, than has any man that I know of in that land. 
 
 Or look at Mrs. Sattianathan, editor, (the widow of 
 Dr. Sattianathan), who is conducting the most beautiful 
 magazine in all India, one devoted to Indian womanhood. 
 She is a lady of peculiar charm of personality and of the 
 graces of life. 
 
 Behold also iMiss Bose, the doctor. She was one of 
 the distinguished members of the National Missionary 
 Council of India three years ago, and, with wonderful 
 ability presented, in that great Council, the cause of In- 
 dia’s womanhood, and revealed her own exquisite power as 
 an example of what the women of India may become and 
 achieve. 
 
 Or consider Miss Cornelia Sorabjee, the lawyer. This 
 lady is the first distinguished woman lawyer in that coun- 
 try. Wonderfully able and devoted, through her pro- 
 fession, to the higher interests of the women of India, 
 she is wielding a unique power today. 
 
 Miss Goreh, the poet, also is a striking personality. 
 She died even while very young, and yet she left as a 
 legacy to the Christian Church a beautiful hymn, the only 
 hymn of an Indian Christian which had found currency 
 in this country, — “In the secret of His Presence, How 
 my soul delights to hide.” 
 
 As I think of these splendid trophies which Christian- 
 ity has won in India, and of other women who are repre- 
 sentative of the glory and power of our faith in that land, 
 I am impelled to exclaim in ancient words: “Who are 
 
 these who are arrayed in white robes? These are they 
 
 Page fifteen 
 
who have come out of the great tribulation and have 
 washed their robes and made them white in the blood of 
 the Lamb.” These are the crown, the brightest and rich- 
 est crown, of Christian Missions in that land; and I know 
 of no Indian Christian men who would present so distin- 
 guished and brilliant a body as that of these noble Chris- 
 tian women. They are worthy to stand beside the best 
 of our 1200 American missionary women now working in 
 that country. 
 
 Page sixteen