At marriage an iron bracelet is placed on the wrist. This is sometimes worn with gold circlets to lessen the sense of subjection. But the iron bracelet does not thus lose its significance, for the woman has everything to remind her of her secondary place in society. Sir Monier Monier-Williams gives the following summary of woman's life in India: "In regard to women, the general feeling is that they are the necessary machines for producing children (Manu, lx: 96), and without children there could be no due performance of the funeral rites essential to the peace of a man's soul after death. This is secured by early marriage. If the law required the consent of boys and girls before the marriage ceremony they might decline to give it. Hence, girls are betrothed at three or four years of age and go through the marriage ceremony at seven to boys of whom they know nothing; and if these boy husbands die the girls remain widows all their lives." Since the boys soon find out their superiority to their mothers, the latter have little part in shaping the characters of the children, and therefore comparatively small influence in moulding the destiny of the people. Wherever the cow is exalted and the woman degraded a nation can hope for little from its women. "We all believe," says a prominent Hindoo, "in the sanctity of the cow and in the depravity of woman." Unwelcomed at her arrival and often harassed and kept in subjection till her death, she can contribute little to the welfare of her people. It may be said, however, that the Hindoo woman is in the main satisfied with her lot, and is the mainstay of Hindooism. VIII BESIDE THE PERSIAN GULF It is a familiar remark that the essential difference between the civilization of the East and that of the West is disclosed in the status of woman in each of these regions of the earth. Erman, in writing of the women of Egypt, broadly remarks that in the West woman is "the companion of man, while in the East she is his servant and toy. In the West at one time, the esteem in which woman was held rose to a cult, while in the East, the question has frequently been earnestly discussed whether woman really belonged to the human race." But he justly adds, this is not absolutely fair, either to the East or to the West. While in India woman has been denied a soul, and among the Teutonic tribes she was honored with a superstitious reverence, yet not all the veneration can be accounted upon the one side, nor all the degradation upon the other. Among the primitive Aryan peoples woman's place appears to have been no mean one. The early traditions of the women of Bactria, ancient Iran, and the region of the Oxus converge with those preserved in the Rigveda of the Hindoos to indicate a high degree of respect for woman, for marriage, and for the other domestic virtues.