Most significant of all, Vambery found even the secluded women of the harems, "those bulwarks of obscurantism," notably changed. "Yes, I repeat, the life of women in Turkey seems to me to have been radically transformed in the last forty years, and it cannot be denied that this transformation has been produced by internal conviction as much as by external pressure." Noting the spread of female education, and the increasing share of women in reform movements, Vambery remarks: "This is of vital importance, for when women shall begin to act in the family as a factor of modern progress, real reforms, in society as well as in the state, cannot fail to appear."[243] In India a similar permeation of social life by Westernism is depicted by the Moslem liberal, S. Khuda Bukhsh, albeit Mr. Bukhsh, being an insider, lays greater emphasis upon the painful aspects of the inevitable transition process from old to new. He is not unduly pessimistic, for he recognizes that "the age of transition is necessarily to a certain extent an age of laxity of morals, indifference to religion, superficial culture, and gossiping levity. These are passing ills which time itself will cure." Nevertheless, he does not minimize the critical aspects of the present situation, which implies nothing less than the breakdown of the old social system. "The clearest result of this breakdown of our old system of domestic life and social customs under the assault of European ideas," he says, "is to be found in two directions--in our religious beliefs and in our social life. The old system, with all its faults, had many redeeming virtues." To-day this old system, narrow-minded but God-fearing, has been replaced by a "strange independence of thought and action. Reverence for age, respect for our elders, deference to the opinions of others, are fast disappearing.... Under the older system the head of the family was the sole guide and friend of its members. His word had the force of law. He was, so to speak, the custodian of the honour and prestige of the family. From this exalted position he is now dislodged, and the most junior member now claims equality with him."[244]