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_ Twenty years ago there were in India five million more men than women, and there has been no change in that respect. The chief cause of this disparity is the habitual slaughter of girl babies. The unwelcome babes are killed with opium pills or exposed to wild beasts. The Pundita Ramabai Sarasvati, in her agonizing book, _The High Caste Hindu Woman_, writes with bitter sarcasm, that
"even the wild animals are so intelligent and of such
refined taste that they mock at British law and almost
always steal _girls_ to satisfy their hunger." "The
census of 1870 revealed the curious fact that three
hundred children were stolen in one year by wolves from
within the city of Umritzar, all the children being
girls."
Hindoo females who escape the opium pills and the wolves seldom have occasion to congratulate themselves therefor. Usually a fate worse than death awaits them. Long before they are old enough, physically or mentally, to marry, they are either delivered bodily or betrothed to men old enough to be their grandfathers. A great many girls are married literally in the cradle, says the authoress just quoted (31). "From five to eleven years is the usual period for this marriage among the Brahmans all over India." Manu made twenty-four the minimum age for men to marry, but "popular custom defies the law. Boys of ten and twelve are now doomed to be married to girls of seven to eight years of age." This early marriage system is "at least five hundred years older than the Christian era." As superstitious custom compels poor parents to marry off their daughters by a given age "it very frequently happens that girls of eight or nine are given to men of sixty or seventy, or to men utterly unworthy of the maidens."[261]
[FOOTNOTE 261: Statistics have shown that twenty-eight per cent of the females were married before their fourth year. The ancient _Sutras_ ordained the age of six to seven the best for girls to marry, and declared that a father who waits till his daughter is twelve years old must go to hell. The evils are aggravated by the fact noted by Dr. Ryder (who gives many pathetic details) that a Hindoo girl of ten often appears like an European child of six, owing to the weak physique inherited from these girl mothers. Yet Mrs. Mansell relates:
"Many pitiable child-wives have said to me, 'Oh, Doctor
mem Sahib, I implore you, do give me medicine that I
may become a mother.' I have looked at their innocent
faces and tender bodies, and asked, 'Why?' The reply
has invariably been, 'My husband will discard me if I
do not bear a child.'"] _
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