[Illustration: Matrimony--A Man loaded with Mischief.[25] "A monkey, a magpie, and wife Is the true emblem of strife." _Old English Tavern Sign._ [Footnote 25: "From History of Sign-boards," by Larwood and Hotten.]] In the records of the past, we find men speaking lightly of women whose laws and usages concede least to women. [Illustration: Settling the Odd Trick. (London, 1778.[26]) [Footnote 26: From Wright's "Caricature History of the Georges," p. 256.]] The oldest thing accessible to us in these modern cities is the Saturday-morning service in an unreformed Jewish synagogue, some of the observances of which date back beyond the historic period. But there is nothing in it older than the sentiment expressed by the men when they thank God for his goodness in not making them women. Only men are admitted to the synagogue as equal worshipers, the women being consigned to the gallery, spectators of their husbands' devotion. The old Jewish liturgy does not recognize their presence. Older than the Jewish liturgy are the sacred books of the Hindoos. The famous passage of the "Padma Parana," translated by the Abbé Dubois,[27] has been part of the domestic code of the Hindoos for thousands of years. According to the Hindoo lawgiver, a woman has no god on earth but her husband, and no religion except to gratify, obey, and serve him. Let her husband be crooked, old, infirm, offensive; let him be irascible, irregular, a drunkard, a gambler, a debauchee; let him be reckless of his domestic affairs, as if possessed by a devil; though he live in the world without honor; though he be deaf or blind, and wholly weighed down by crime and infirmity--still shall his wife regard him as her god. With all her might shall she serve him, in all things obey him, see no defects in his character, and give him no cause of uneasiness. Nay, more: in every stage of her existence woman lives but to obey--at first her parents, next her husband and _his_ parents, and in her old age she must be ruled by her children. Never during her whole life can she be under her own control. [Footnote 27: "Description of the Character, Manners, and Customs of the People of India," vol. i., p. 316, by J. A. Dubois, London, 1817.]