of a girl wife to the home of her husband is not an unalloyed happiness to the mother by any means. With all that makes marriage a lottery all over the world, the marriage of the native girl is loaded with the additional risk of the probable character and disposition of her mother-in-law.
"In native married life in its best and earliest years there is usually a mother-in-law for the bride. As this relation is rarely absent from the household the influence which she can and does exercise upon the women of this country surpasses every other influence. If it is an influence of debasement, what dreadful scourge it must be, and how extensive must be its hideous ramifications. How can the man whose wife is in bondage be noble and free ? It is cruel to shut our eyes to the consequences of premature marriages, coupled as they are with an undivided household, and with all the chances of happiness and fair plan completely against the helpless woman. To say that the women of India are content to live according to the custom is to suppose that they are devoid of sensibility and destitute of womanly feeling. From whatever point of view the subject of premature marriage may be regarded, we do not hesitate to say that its worst feature is undoubtedly derived from the hideous institution on a ruling mother-in-law who has scarcely a single feeling or sympathy with the helpless child bride."
The information, upon which the above article is founded, appears to have been obtained from the Maratha country.The degrading custom of poligamy seems to have escaped the attention of the benevolent writer. If the daughter-in-law, or her parents and friends offer any resistance, her merciless oppressor threatens to bring in a rival and so make her life miserable for ever. The position of the daughter-in-law in Gujarat is worse, and her degradation and sufferings are greater than what has been so faithfully depicted above.
"A native mother," says our friend, selects a wife for her son, aged ten, and chooses a child of four years." In the majority of cases in Gujarat the infant bridegroom and bride are of nearly equal age, and in some instances the bride is actually older from one to six years. Now imagine the position of the poor wife! In addition to the evils her Marathi sister encounters she has to bear the miseries resulting from having a boy-husband incapable of thinking for himself, and
