‘With the native women, of any rank in society, the European has not the most distant communication. It will be observed, therefore, how impossible it is for an European to speak from his own personal knowledge of the familiar manners of the native of Hindostan. The following sketch is collected from the various accounts received from sensible and respectable people of different ranks in society. It will probably correct some prejudices respecting the fair sex in Eastern countries, or at least afford some reasonable explanation of the manner in which they are treated. Their confinement is in general solely ascribed to the jealousy of the husband, and to the number of wives allowed to one man, to which the voluptuousness of a warm climate is supposed to conduce. But, in speaking themselves of the confinement of their women, they offer the following reasons for the custom, viz. the variety of tribes, and intermixture of strange people; the instability of their government, and consequent confusion in the country, requiring that their families should be placed in secure places; the tyranny of their former rulers and their favorites, with whom it was no unusual occurrence to seize by force the wives of others; and, lastly, because a passage in the Koran[2] seems to recommend a reserved deportment in women. It says, ‘You shall not shew your _zeenut_[3] to any one except your husband, your own father, or your husband’s; (the present custom in Bengal precludes him;) your own son, or your husband’s son; or your brother, or his son, or your sister’s son; or your own female servants, being of your own faith; or your male servants of the following description: such as old men, eunuchs, debilitated men, or fools, who think of nothing but eating, or little children, unto such are you allowed to shew your _zeenut_[3].’ Such exceptions from so sacred an authority, which leaves little but the fingers and toes for general inspection, would seem to render the seclusion of a Mussulman lady a matter of necessity, not choice. ----- Footnote 2: The Institutes of Mahomed, held in the same estimation as our Bible. Footnote 3: _Zeenut_, literally _ornamented_, means such parts as are usually covered; such as the breast, from the knee to the ancle, from the wrist upwards, the hand, shoulders, &c. -----