guide. At the tender age (generally about 13 years) at which she is introduced to her husband, her mind is quite flexible. She will easily receive new and improved ideas and give up many of her mischievous prejudices and foolish old views. She can be taught to distinguish between right and wrong. If she has acquired any knowledge at school, her husband can add to it. If she has not been sent to school, he can undertake the noble task of teaching her from the commencement. An hour in the evening spent daily in imparting knowledge and instruction to her, in reading with her newspapers, magazines and good books, will prove very profitable indeed. A joint prayer offered to God the Creator and Ruler of the Universe, before going to bed will be a very appropriate confusion of the hour so very happily and usefully passed. I recommend, for the purpose of prayer and thanksgiving, the use of the books of the Ahmedabad Prarthna Samaj.
This will be some set-off against her retreched condition under a tyrannical mother-in-law. Under such leading there is every instance of her becoming a lenient and kind mother-in-law, when she will have to rule the household. She will be able to understand the advantages of infant marriages, the wrongs of the widows, the folly of loading children with ornaments, of beating one's breast in open streets on death occasions, of uttering obscene language at weddings &c. She will know what her social evils are and heartily join us in removing them. Even when her mother-in-law is just and kind to her as is sometimes the case, such treatment will prove very beneficial. The wife thus taught will appreciate the blessings of education and comprehend and the reason offering our worship to the one true god only. Our endeavours to introduce reforms among our people will continue to be lame, and in a great degree, fruitless, as long as our wives continue to be ignorant, oppressed, and superstitious. Let us raise their position in society, and it their tone of morality. Let us increase their knowledge of the world. Let us aquaint them with their duties as wives and mothers and their duties to man and to God.
