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THE IDEAL OF INDIAN WOMANHOOD
rally hesitate to invest their hard-earned money in un enterprise of such doubtíul earning capacity. The marriage of young men on the expectation of their being able in carn before long will de crease. In a progressively incrcasing number,
ang incu will find themselves in a position of indigent individuals outside the pale of the joint family: for them marriage will become out of question. Already, there are thousands in this precarious position. No unemployed young man of cducation, and with a sense of responsibility, would think o marrying and raising a family.
What is the other side of this picture ? A large number of young men, unable to marry, means an equally large number of women deprived of the possibility of becoming wives and mothers. What are they going to do? There is no place for them in the iraditional scheine of Hindu society. Polygamy cannot absorb them any longer. Very [cw people of their class can afford more than one wife today. Besides, this novcl kind of outcastes belongs to the educated middle-class, theinselves more or less educated. They would not be disposed of by some arbitrary arrangement sanctioned by religion and tradition ; for example, to becomc Devadasis in temples or be formally married by dozens to some worthy man in death-bed. And even then, in the latter case, the glory of widowed wifehood would not make up for the fact of their being robbed of the
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