The situation is still worse between the daughter-in-law and the mother-in-law. The vernaculars of India abound in proverbs which illumine this relationship and reveal its strange character. The husband's mother apparently delights in nothing more than in exercising a cruel restraint over her son's wife. Nothing that the young woman can do will please her. And the husband too often sides with the older against the younger woman. When, however, the situation becomes intolerable to the wife, she takes French leave, and goes home to her parents. This soon brings her husband to terms; and it is etiquette that he go and ask her to return, apologizing for the troubles that she has endured. And so the situation is improved, for a while, until another visit to her parents becomes imperative. It is natural enough that the mother-in-law should thus deal harshly with her daughter-in-law; for is it not her revenge for the similar treatment which she received many years ago as daughter-in-law? The real attitude of the Hindu toward his wife is doubtless more cordial than it appears to a Westerner. He seems to delight in revealing an indifference to her feelings and a contempt for her position. In the household, she is not permitted to eat with him; she must wait upon his lordship and take the leavings of his meal. Upon a journey, it would be gross impropriety for her to walk by his side. Etiquette demands that she walk behind him at a respectable distance of, say, ten paces. The love of jewellery is a marked passion with the women of India. Millions of money are expended every year in the manufacture of female adornments. And in this work there are more than four hundred thousand goldsmiths constantly employed. The wealth of a family, especially among the middle classes, is largely measured by the amount of jewellery which the women of the household possess. No one would grudge to these women a certain amount of these personal ornaments; but when it becomes a mad craze to convert all their wealth into such vanity, and thus to render their wealth entirely unremunerative, it becomes a serious matter. The loading down of a woman or a girl with precious stones, gold, silver, or cheaper metal, adds anything but attractiveness to the person. It gives them a gross conception of personal attractiveness as well as a monetary value to beauty, which degrades the ideals of the country. When a woman's ears and nose, the crown of her head, her neck, arms, hands, waist, ankles, and toes are made to sparkle with the wealth of the family, and to bear down the frail body of the proud victim, they cease entirely to set off the personal beauty of the woman herself, and become rather a counter attraction; and she is admired not for what she is, but for what she carries.