After a little girl has reached her fifth birthday, her parents begin to look for a husband for her. She can be married when seven years old, but may wait until she is ten. The idea of marrying for love is never dreamed of. The little one never makes her own choice of a husband. Her married life bears not the slightest resemblance to the life of a wife in a Christian land. The Shasters declare that a wife, “When in the presence of her husband, must keep her eyes upon her master, and be ready to receive his commands. When he speaks, she must be quiet, and listen to nothing else besides; when he calls, she must leave everything else, and attend upon him alone. A woman has no other god on earth but her husband. The most excellent of all good works that she can perform is to gratify him with the strictest obedience. This should be her only devotion. Though he be aged, infirm, dissipated, a drunkard or a debauchee, she must still regard him as her god. She must serve him with all her might, obeying him in all things, spying no defects in his character, and giving him no cause for disquiet. If he laughs, she must laugh; if he weeps, she must weep; if he sings, she must be in an ecstasy.” The wife may never walk with her husband. No other man than he or her father or brothers must ever look on her face. A Hindu woman would rather die than to be thus defiled, as they are taught to regard it. [Illustration: HINDU WOMAN.] Woman in India is in the power of her husband completely; she is his slave, and must wait on his every motion. Worse than this, she is not the only wife, for Hinduism permits a man to have many wives. When her husband dies, the wife is more unhappy than ever. All her ornaments and beautiful clothing are taken from her, and only a poor, coarse, brown robe is left; her black hair is shorn off, and the tali--answering to our marriage-ring--is taken from her. Henceforth, if she live, she must practice the severest penance. Often, before the British government put a stop to it, the widow was burned alive with the dead body of her husband. For all this degradation and misery and shameless treatment of women Hinduism is responsible. CHAPTER XII. HINDU TEMPLES, IDOLS AND WORSHIP. A thousand pilgrims strain Arm, shoulder, breast and thigh, with might and main, To drag that sacred wain, And scarce can draw the enormous load, Prone fall the frantic votaries in its road, And calling on the god, Their self-devoted bodies there they lay To pave his chariot-way. On Jaga-Naut they call, The ponderous car rolls on, and crushes all. ROBERT SOUTHEY.