But though a Hindu wife is often free from the pain and misery that killed this one, there is always a great fear that hangs over her, for her husband may die, and then she will be a widow. If a little wife dies, her husband may marry again, but a high caste Hindu widow must never marry a second time. Often little girls are married to full grown men; sometimes, even, they are married to old men, so it very often happens that a girl becomes a widow when she is only a child, and there are Hindu widows who are not one year old. At first the child may not know that there is any change in her life, but as she begins to grow older she finds that all the hard work is left for her, and that no one wishes to see her when a feast or a wedding is held, or when anything bright is going on. Then one day a priest comes to her village, and to the house where she lives. She is not afraid of him, for she knows no reason why he should be angry with her. But he is angry with her. He says her beautiful black hair must be cut off, and soon the barber comes and shaves her head all over. After that time she is only allowed to eat one meal a day, and twice a month she does not even get that one meal. She has to wear a rough Sari that lets everyone know that she is a widow even if she covers up her little close-shaved head, and in some cases she only has that one dress for night wear and day wear till it is so ragged that it will scarcely hold together. Besides all that, the friends of her husband think that they cannot be too cruel to her, because they believe that she must have done something very wrong indeed in one of the lives she lived long before, and that it is because of that, that she is a widow. They think that if their boy had married another wife he would still be well and bright. But though girls suffer far more from the early marriages of India than boys do, the boys have to bear many unnecessary burdens because of them. They have to work hard in order to help to get food for the household, and wee boys labour for long days in the rice fields. They guide the oxen at the plough, and they carry the pots of water from rivers and canals to fill the little channels that water the fields; and sometimes, even with all these early years of toil, a young man finds that he cannot feed his family or give gifts to the gods. Then he goes to a money-lender, and if he once does that, there is little happiness for him or for his children, for the money-lender will take everything from him, his jewels, his wife’s jewels, her clothes, all but the plainest which she keeps to wear; and then perhaps his fields will have to go too, and the cruel money-lender will send men to watch the rice, and the millet, and the wheat as they grow, for fear any of the crop should be reaped without his knowledge.