FROM THE TELEGRAPH OF 21 MARCH 2006
Liberty in confinement
Mirza Abu Taleb,
a Lucknowy nobleman, boarded a barge in Calcutta on the first of Ramzan, AH
1213. He sailed to Cape Town, where he found Boer women quite wanton in
consorting with passing sailors. He sailed on to Cork. From there he made his
way to London, where he stayed for two years and five months. He found it
expensive; finally he rented a house in a street peopled by ladies of easy
virtue. On the tenth day of Safar, AH 1217, he set out in a stage coach for
Dover. He traveled through France and Italy, and took a ship from Genoa to
Istanbul. From there he traveled, mostly on horseback, across the Ottoman Empire
– today’s Turkey and Iraq – to Basra. Thence he sailed to Bombay, where he
arrived on the tenth of Safar, AH 1218 – 3 June 1803. His travelogue, whose
latest edition was edited by Mushirul Hasan (Westward Bound: Travels of Mirza Abu Talib, Oxford), has been popular
for the oriental view of the west it offered.
Less noticed is
what he tells us about our own civilization. In England he was assailed by a
lady who thought that the orientals’ treatment of their women was execrable. In
reply, the Mirza wrote a spirited defence.
According to
him, women in England had to go out on the streets because of inconveniences
not suffered by Indian women. For one thing, England was expensive; so husbands
could not afford separate houses for their wives. So they had to eat together,
sleep together, and be together with their husbands whether they liked it or
not. Indian women, on the other hand, had their own apartments. If they felt
like it, they could spend days together with their sahelis in the zenanah, away
from the husband, just sending him his food in the murdannah (men’s quarters).
Further, Britain
was cold. That forced the husband to share the bed with his wife for warmth.
But they could not stay in bed forever; they had to get out sometimes and brave
the cold. The best antidote against cold was walking. But there was hardly room
in an English house for a walk; so poor women had to venture out on the
streets.
England was
lucky in having a homogeneous population with uniformly good manners. In India,
there were foreigners around; intercourse with them could cause corruption of
manners. Before the Mussulmans entered Hindoostan, Hindoo women went about with
uncovered faces. Now, however, a Hindoo bride would not show her face even to
her father-in-law – or a sister to her brother.
Englishwomen
could not avoid meeting men because they had to help their husbands in their
businesses. Indian women would not do business; they only managed their
husbands’ property. They loved leisure; motion fatigued them. They would not
want to go into the streets and mix with the vulgar or be insulted by the lowly
and the rude; neither did the wives of European noblemen, who always went about
in a coach.
Indian women’s
lives were not so boring as Englishwomen thought. They could walk in gardens
from which all men were kept out. They could meet their relations at meals or hop
into a palanquin and visit them or other ladies of rank. They could call
dancers and musicians home to entertain them.
Englishwomen
found it shocking that an Indian could have many wives. Hardly 5 per cent of
the men married more than once, for the rest knew that it was easier to live
with two tigresses than two women. But if some men married many wives, that was
only fair, for a wife made herself unavailable so often. She became pregnant or
suckled a child, or went off to her parents’. And additional wives were not so
bad for the first wife. If they were of genteel extraction, they lived
separately in their own houses, just like mistresses in England. If they were
not, they lived like servants in the zenanah (women’s quarters), and the
husband visited them stealthily. Their children, it was true, could share in
his inheritance. But what inheritance could the poor fellow leave? All his
money went in repaying the extravagant dowry his first wife brought.
The husband
could, it was true, divorce his wife at will. That was only fair, since he had
had to do all the work and go to war while the wife lived in repose. But hardly
any husband ever divorced his wife. If she offended him in a small way, such as
by showing a feminine temper, he just moved out of the house. If the offence
was bigger, he could chastise her. But if he starved her or did not distribute
his company fairly amongst his wives, she could sue for divorce.
In an Indian
court of justice, evidence, to be admissible, had to be supported by testimony
of two men, but four women. That was not because they were inferior; they were
just inexperienced, ignorant and fickle.
Indian women had
to stop wearing nice dresses and going to entertainments after their husbands
died. But that was only because of their affection for their husbands. They
could go ahead and have a good time if they were prepared to brave the
opprobrium of women of their rank.
Indian girls, it
was true, could not choose their own husbands. But neither could English girls;
if they chose a boy their parents disapproved of, they had to run away, just
like some slaves in India. How could the impetuous choice of a girl straight
out of the nursery, lusting for a man, compare with that of her experienced and
dispassionate parents?
Indian women
were not worse off; they were actually more privileged than Englishwomen. They were
in charge of the children, who grew up in the zenanah and were more attached to
their mothers than to their fathers. In the event of divorce, they kept their
daughters; Englishwomen lost all their children to the father.
They were in
charge of their servants; even their husbands’ servants lived in fear of them. Unlike
Englishwomen, who were like guests in their husbands’ houses, an Indian woman was
the mistress. The kitchen was in the zenanah; if the wife did not send him
food, a husband would starve.
Unlike an
Englishwoman, who could not spend a night away from her husband and who had to find
a male escort to accompany her when she went out, an Indian woman could go and
spend a week away with a female friend of hers. There, her husband could not
visit her, but a 15-year-old youth could walk into the zenanah on the pretext
of being a child.
If an Indian
husband offended his wife, she could set off to her father’s house with her
children and property; the husband would have a hard time persuading her to
come back. In fact, she was trained to be difficult. And it was her right to
tease her husband. She was well advised to tease him, for her beauty would lose
its charm if she did not make him dance to her tune.
Well, those were
the days!
