beauty, their minds, and their health." And yet, allowing the utmost
for this greater calm and contentment, our women would lose a boon,
standing quite alone in its immense value, if they were to give up
that liberty which is so fast gaining them a full share in every real
privilege enjoyed by men. Christian women mingle on equal terms in
our social, literary, patriotic, and religious festivals. Hindu or
Mohammedan ladies are condemned merely to look in, through windows
grated with bamboo slats, on the preaching of the priests, and on the
banquets of their husbands. Perhaps our ignorance as to the facts,
and our prejudices as to the principle, exaggerate the actual evils
of polygamy in Asia. The most trustworthy travellers there testify
that not one man in ten can afford to maintain more than one wife;
and that not one in ten, of those who can afford it, will venture on
the trial, if they have a child by the first. Besides, the dreadful
mortality of wives in many parts of America--owing to excessive worry,
household drudgery, and rapid child-bearing--amounts to polygamy, only
it is successive instead of simultaneous.

But one privilege European and American women have, which they cannot
easily over-estimate; namely, their exemption from the irresponsible
despotism still exercised over a majority of their sisters. The whole
force of public opinion and of civil law is pledged for their
protection. In his travels in Khasmir, published in 1844, Vigne
relates this horrid incident, which happened within his own
knowledge. Mihan Singh, governor of Kabul, had a favorite wife, the
mother of his only son, who was accused of an intrigue. Her son,
fearing the worst, dashed his turban on the ground before his father--
the most imploring act an Oriental can use--and knelt, bareheaded, at
his feet. But the enraged husband was inexorable, and caused his
hapless wife to be baked alive. What a breadth of progress separates
us from the state of society in which such a deed could be done
openly, and without illegality, by a ruler! Can any woman be too
grateful that she stands on this side of that breadth instead of on
the other side? It is to be feared that her sex is not always mindful
enough of the duty of those who are free to be bravely sincere and
true. Deceit is proper to the slave. Liberty imposes frankness. The
Asiatic woman carefully covers her face, but leaves her legs naked,
and considers her European sister shameless in rever