It is very generally represented in America and England that in India the wife is not respected and loved. This is a very false idea, for in India the wife is more loved and respected than in this country. In this country the wife is loved and kissed and fondled in public but in private the wife is rejected. In India the husband pays but little or no respect to the wife in public, but in his heart of hearts he worships her.’
In this country the public treatment of the wife is more important than the private, but not so in India; the husband pays no attention to the wife in public, but the husband in his own way sacrifices everything to the interests of the wife. He spares no pains to advance her happiness, but the difference lies in the fact that the women of India are not educated to the same degree as the men. But are women educated in this country to the same degree as the men? The men in India are not educated to the same degree as in this country, nor are the women.
Today all the blame is placed at the door of the marriage relation in India, but this is not right; it is not the correct solution of the problem.
In India a man dare not call the wife as “my wife,” never can a man refer to the wife as my wife. Such words are looked upon as obscene, as sacrilegious, as shameful. A man in India never uses these words and when he refers to the wife, he addresses her or refers to her as the mother of my son, he says “My Krishna’s mother, or my Rama’s mother, etc.”
“The hut where a boy was plague stricken.”
In India the law is that none of the family be permitted to come near the one who is plague stricken.
This grand woman went to the hut of the plague stricken boy, and by some means gained entrance. She remained there and exposed herself in order to nurse the poor boy who was dying of plague. Finally the mother of the boy was admitted and the dear boy was lying with his head on the feet of his mother and there he was dying; that according to the Hindu religion was a death in the Holy land, just as when a Christian dies with his head on the feet of Jesus. When an Indian boy dies with his head at the feet of his mother, he looks upon that death as very sacred.
In this country you worship God as the Father, “The father who art in Heaven.” In India God is worshipped not as the father but as the mother. The word mother is the dearest word in the Indian language, “Mata Ji” the blessed God, the dearest God.
When a Hindu falls sick or is suffering excruciating pain, at that moment of pain the words that escape him are not ‘My God’. No, it is ‘Ma, Ma’, which means mother; this is what escapes from his lips, this is what comes from the innermost depths of a Hindu’s heart. Mother is the word which brings the deepest feeling from the soul of a Hindu.