Like the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, and like the highlands of Central Asia, or Ariyana, so the mountains, plains and forests of =India= were inhabited long before the dawn of history by masses of men of various races and split into many hundreds of tribes. Of these races descendants exist in almost the same conditions as their ancestors did many thousand years ago. In Southern India the Kader are still living in primitive tree-huts. Assam and Bhutan are regions abounding with villages which are the exact counterparts of the prehistorical lake-dwellings of Switzerland. These vast regions of India were at some unknown time invaded by tribes of =Aryan= or =Indo-Germanic= race. While among the aborigines of India women were subjected to all the hardships and bad treatment of primeval times, the women of the Aryans enjoyed, as stated above, a far higher position. Like their husbands they were the “rulers of the house,” had the entire management of household affairs, and were allowed to appear freely in public. Husband and wife also drew near to the gods together in prayer. That the education of the females was not neglected is proven by the fact, that some of the most beautiful Vedas or national hymns and lyric poems were composed by ladies and queens.— With the decline of the Aryan race and culture in India, caused most probably by the hot, enervating climate of the country, the position of women also underwent a change for the worse. Especially the growing despotism of the Brahmanic priests gradually robbed women of all their former rights and liberty. In time they became completely subject to the authority of man. Mothers owed obedience to their own sons, and daughters were absolutely dependent upon the will of their fathers. The system of conventional precepts, known as “Manu’s Code of Laws,” clearly defined the relative position and the duties of the several castes and sexes, and determined the penalties to be inflicted on any transgressors of the limits assigned to each of them. But these laws are conceived with no human or sentimental scruples on the part of their authors. On the contrary, the offenses, committed by Brahmans against other castes, are treated with remarkable clemency, whilst the punishments inflicted for trespasses on the rights of the Brahmans and higher classes are the more severe and inhuman the lower the offender stands in the social scale. Against the female sex Manu’s laws are full of hostile expressions: “Women are able to lead astray in this world, not only the fools, but even learned men, and to make them slaves of lust and anger.”—