ropean feels for the Hindoo
use of the fingers which European laborers practice. Hindoos clean the
teeth with a fresh twig every day, and are horrified that Europeans do
it with a brush made of the hair of an animal, and do it frequently with
the same brush. There are days on which one must not brush the teeth on
pain of hell. "Saliva is of all things the most utterly
polluting."[1591] For a woman to have to part with her hair is one of
the greatest of degradations and the most terrible of all trials. Hindoo
women never use false hair if they lose their own.[1592] Women are safe
and are treated with respect in public. The honor of a Hindoo requires
that he look no higher than the ankles of a passing woman.[1593] He must
not touch a woman. If many men and women meet, for instance in
traveling, they may lie down side by side to sleep without
impropriety.[1594] Not one man in a hundred in India ever tasted liquor,
"but a Hindoo beggar may not eat bread made with yeast or baked by any
but Hindoos of his own or a better caste."[1595] The Angharmi of
northeastern India consider it a reproach for a woman to bear a child
before her hair is long enough to be tied behind. Until marriage the
women shave the head. Spouses are therefore separated for a year after
marriage.[1596]

Modern Egyptians think it improper for a man to "describe the features
or person of a female (as that she has a straight nose or large eyes) to
one of his own sex, by whom it is unlawful that she should be
seen."[1597] Modern Sicilian peasants at their balls dance in couples of
men and couples of women, "such an idea as a man putting his arm around
a woman's waist in a waltz being considered indecent."[1598]

+486. Greek rules of propriety.+ Nausikaa disregarded the lack of dress
of the shipwrecked when they needed help, but she had a complete code of
propriety and good manners with which she compelled them to
comply.[1599] In the Greek tragedies modest and proper behavior for
women is characterized by reserve, retirement, reluctance. They ought
not to talk publicly with young men or to expose themselves to the gaze
of men. They may not run out into the street with hair and dress
disordered, or roam about the country, or run to look at sights.
Clytemnestra told Iphigenia to be reserved with Achilles if she could be
so and win her point, but to win her point. Iphigenia considered it a
cause of shame to her that her proposed marriage was broken off.

+487.