Chapter (অধ্যায়): XXXV (The Detroit Tribune) PAGE-293Page: 293 of 526
In India when a woman is unfaithful to her husband she loses her caste, but none of her civil or religious rights. She can still own property and the temples are still open to her.
'Yes," said Kananda, "a bad woman is not allowed to marry. She cannot marry any one without their being an outcast like herself, so she marries a tree, or sometimes a sword. It is the custom. Sometimes these women grow very rich and become very charitable, but they can never regain their caste. In the interior towns, where they still adhere to the old customs, she cannot ride in a carriage, no matter how wealthy she may be; the best that she is allowed is a pair of bullocks. And then in India she has to wear a dress of her own, so that she can be distinguished. You can see these people going by, but no one ever speaks to them. The greatest number of these women is in the cities. A good many of them are Jews too, but they all have different quarters of the cities, you know. They all live apart. It is a singular thing that, bad as they are, wretched as some of these women are, they will not admit a Christian lover. They will not eat with them or touch them-the `omnivorous barbarians', as they call them. They call them that because they eat everything. Do you know what that disease, the unspeakable disease, is called in India? It is called `Bad Faringan', which means `the Christian disease'. It was the Christian that brought it into India.
"Has there been any attempt in India to solve this question? Is it a public question the way it is in America?"
"No, there has been very little done in India. There is a great field for women missionaries if they would convert prostitutes in India. They do nothing in India-very little. There is one sect, the Veshnava [Vaishnava], who try to reclaim these women. This is a religious sect. I