WOMEN OF BENGAL : A STUDY OF THE PARDANASINS OF CALCUTTA BY MARGARET M. URQUHART (HARDCOVER)

Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. Contents: 1. The background. 2. The home. 3. The family. 4. The Bengali woman. 5. The woman's world. 6. The Bengali woman's religion. 7. Changes and the future. Index. This book is limited to the women who have come within the range of author's own experience during a residence of twenty-five years in Bengal the caste women of Calcutta and its surroundings. The connection of most Calcutta Hindu families with rural Bengal is, however, still so close, that the author's descriptions are as far as they are true and will to large extent apply equally to village women. With many of these pardanasins whom the author has known he thinks he may claim that his relation has been not merely that of a spectator or a teacher but one of friendship and real intimacy. The motive of writing at all is a genuine desire to gain and to pass on a better understanding of the life of our fellow-subjects in Bengal than is within reach of most Europeans in India. No one can become familiar with the women of Bengal without learning much from the simplicity and piety of their lives. The virtues of the olden time still shine in the ways of many a well ordered Hindu household and the Hindus have good cause to be proud of their womenfolk.