Of all the religions which have diversified mankind, whatever man might select, woman should choose the Christian. This alone gives her just rank in the scale of creation, whether arising from the demotic principle which pervades our faith, or the dignity conferred on the sex in being chosen to be the mother of the Saviour of man. In turning over the pages of Manu we find many mortifying texts, which I am inclined to regard as interpolations; as the following, so opposed to the beautiful sentiment above quoted: “A wife, a son, a servant, a pupil, and a younger brother, may be corrected when they commit faults with a rope, or the small thong of a cane” [viii. 299]. Such texts might lead us to adopt Ségur’s conclusions, that ever since the days of the patriarchs women were only brilliant slaves—victims, who exhibited, in the wreaths and floral coronets which bedecked them, the sacrifices to which they were destined. In the patriarchal ages their occupations were to season the viands, and bake the bread, and weave cloth for the tents: their recreations limited to respire the fresh evening air under the shade of a fig tree, and sing canticles to the Almighty. Such a fate, indeed, must appear to a Parisian dame, who passes her time between the Feydeau and Tivoli, and whose daily promenade is through the Champs Élysées, worse than death: yet there is no positive hardships in these employments, and it was but the fair division of labour in the primitive ages, and that which characterizes the Rajputni of the present day. Footnote 4.23.10: Manu lays down some plain and wholesome rules for the domestic conduct of the wife; above all, he recommends her to “preserve a cheerful temper,” and “frugality in domestic expenses” [_Laws_, v. 150]. Some of his texts savour, however, more of the anchorite than of a person conversant with mankind; and when he commands the husband to be reverenced as a god by the virtuous wife, even though enamoured of another woman, it may be justly doubted if ever he found obedience thereto; or the scarcely less difficult ordinance, “for a whole year let a husband bear with his wife who treats him with aversion,” after which probation he is permitted to separate [ix. 77]. It is very likely the Rajputs are more in the habit of quoting the first of these texts than of hearing the last: for although they have a choice at home, they are not ashamed to be the avowed admirers of the Aspasias and Phrynes of the capital; from the same cause which attracted Socrates and made Pericles a slave and which will continue until the united charms of the dance and the song are sanctioned to be practised by the _légitimes_ within. Footnote 4.23.11: Manu ix. 101. Footnote 4.23.12: Parmāl or Paramardi Chandel (A.D. 1165-1203). He was defeated by Prithirāj Chauhān in 1182.] Footnote 4.23.13: