WOMEN

Here at Cape Comorin, at India's southernmost point, among the sands and
the cactuses and the palms rattling in the breeze, comes to us news of
the Franchise Bill and of militant suffragettes. And I reflect that in
this respect England is a "backward" country and Travancore an
"advanced" one. Women here--except the Brahmin women--are, and always
have been, politically and socially on an equality and more than an
equality with men. For this is one of the few civilised States--for
aught I know it is the only one--in which "matriarchy" still prevails.
That doesn't mean--though the word suggests it--that women govern,
though, in fact, the succession to the throne passes to women equally
with men. But it means that woman is the head of the family, and that
property follows her line, not the man's. All women own property equally
with men, and own it in their own right. The mother's property passes to
her children, but the father's passes to his mother's kin. The husband,
in fact, is not regarded as related to the wife. Relationship means
descent from a common mother, whereas descent from a common father is a
negligible fact, no doubt because formerly it was a questionable one.
Women administer their own property, and, as I am informed, administer
it more prudently than the men.

Not only so; they have in marriage the superior position occupied by men
in the West. The Nair woman chooses her own husband; he comes to her
house, she does not go to his; and, till recently, she could dismiss him
as soon as she was tired of him. The law--man-made, no doubt!--has
recently altered this, and now mutual consent is required for a valid
divorce. Still the woman is, at least on this point, on an equality with
the man. And the heavens have not yet fallen. As to the vote, it is not
so important or so general here as at home. The people live under a
paternal monarchy "by right divine." The Rajah who consolidated the
kingdom, early in the eighteenth century, handed it over formally to the
god of the temple, and administers it in his name. Incidentally this
gave him access to temple revenues. It also makes his person sacred. So
much so that in a recent prison riot, when the convicts escaped and
marched to the police with their grievances, the Rajah had only to
appear and tell them to march back to prison, and they did so to a man,
and took their punishment. The government, it will be seen, is not by
votes. Still there are votes for l