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Updated: June 23, 2025
He thus describes the feelings of the people of the East with respect to the unapproachable sanctity of their Zenanas: "It is too much, I am afraid, the case, that persons, used to European manners, do not take up these sort of considerations at first with the seriousness that is necessary.
You have but to meet the Mohammedan now in London to realize the white heat to which their anger is rising. In India itself the whole of the Mohammedan community from Peshawar to Arcot is seething with passion upon this subject. Women inside the Zenanas are weeping over it.
Ennui is not weariness nor tediousness, as described in the dictionary; neither is it boredom, for the latter differs therefrom in its not necessarily being the outcome of a high degree of civilization, which ennui certainly is. An untutored savage of Central Africa, or of the wilds of Australia may be bored; so are many of the ignorant houris of Oriental harems and zenanas.
They had their romances and their tragedies, and although the Mohammedan custom kept them closely imprisoned in the zenanas, they nevertheless exerted a powerful influence in arranging the destinies of the Mogul empire.
One bright noon in North India, sixty years ago, a young missionary on an evangelistic tour among the villages paused to rest by the wayside. As he paced up and down beneath the tamarind trees, pondering the problem of India's womanhood, shut in the zenanas beyond the reach of the Gospel which he was bringing to the little villages, there fell at his feet a feather from a vulture's wing.
Picking it up, he whimsically cut it into a quill. Thinking that his sister in far-away America might like a letter from so strange a pen, he went into his tent and wrote to her. He told her of the millions of girls shut up in those "citadels of heathenism," the zenanas of India, a problem which only Christian women might hope to solve.
Bathurst's words had for the first time brought home to her the reality of their existence, and that around this little group of English men and women lay a vast population, with their joys and sorrows and sufferings. At breakfast she surprised Mrs. Hunter by asking a variety of questions as to native customs. "I suppose you have often been in the Zenanas, Mrs. Hunter?" "Not often, my dear.
The hero of the adventure was visited by rajahs and notables, who vied with each other in expressions of welcome, in making presents, even inviting him to visit the sacred precincts of their zenanas. The promised parachute descent was subsequently successfully made at Cossipore, and then followed a busy, brilliant season, after which the wanderer returned to England.
The greatest good women missionaries have done in India, I think, is in bringing modern medical science into the homes of the natives. No man is ever admitted to the zenanas, no matter what may happen, and thousands upon thousands, yes, millions upon millions, of poor creatures have suffered and died for lack of ordinary medical attention because of the etiquette of caste.
"Why mamma, if she were a black unbeliever you would be delighted to have her; it is only because she is white that you won't have anything to do with her. You would have been as pleased as possible if I had made friends with any of the ladies in the Zenanas." Mrs. Fane-Smith looked uncomfortable, and murmured that that was a very different question.
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