e has been, for many centuries, a crying evil in that land.
This has brought to woman a train of evils which have made deplorable her
condition above all the women of the earth. This custom originated,
probably, from a sense of kindness to the girl herself. It was the
expression of a desire on the part of the parents to insure their
daughter, at an early date, against failure to attain that which all
Hindus regard as the _summum bonum_ of a woman's life--marriage. But, in
their short-sighted policy, they failed to realize the myriad evils which
would follow this pernicious custom. The girl's will or desire must not be
regarded as an element in this life compact! And, what is worse still,
these infant compacts are necessarily followed by early consummation,
whereby girls enter, in many cases, upon the duties of motherhood at
twelve years of age. Few, indeed, are permitted to reach full physical
development before they assume the function of child-bearing. This is not
only a serious evil to the woman herself, it also gives poor chance for
the begetting of a healthy progeny and for the early training of the same.
And it is not strange that the woman who thus early enters the sphere of
motherhood should become a worn out old woman at thirty-five or forty
years.

Much effort has been put forth in India, by Westerners especially, to make
infant marriages impossible, or at least unpopular. But, little success
has thus far attended this effort.

A small meed of alleviation was gained with much effort in 1891. It came
through the passing of the "Age of Consent Bill" whereby the age of a
girl's consent to cohabitation was raised from ten to twelve. To a
Westerner, the blessing acquired by this bill seems in itself a mockery
and only reveals the appalling cruelty of that people to its girls.

It has been found impossible to touch, much less remove, the gross evil of
infant marriage itself, the custom which opens wide the door to other
ghastly evils.

The greatest of these is that of virgin-widowhood. If men will perversely
marry their infant daughters to small boys, it is sure that a considerable
proportion of the boys will die before their marriage is consummated.
Thus, annually, thousands of these poor girls, who are in absolute
ignorance of the situation, are converted into virgin widows whose
condition, upon the death of their husbands, is instantly changed from one
of innocent childhood pleasure into a sad, despised and ha