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THE IDEAL OF INDIAN WOMANHOOD
fully enfranchised citizens can women really be the queens of homes. The natural ideals of womanhood are not incompatible with the greater ideals of the modern woman. It is idle to idealise home when to have a hunc is becoming a
robkim for a growing number of women. An Ideal home on no longer be created by man alone. The privilee is reserved for the fortunato for who live on uncanned inconic. But the great majority, particuliirty of the uniddle-class, arc ilependent on individual curning capacity which, in most cases, is quite insufficient for keeping even a small family on a tolerable standard of living. The way out of this difficulty is to broaden the basis of the co-operation between man and woman. If young people are to create pleasant homes and raise healthy families, women must share the economic responsibility. What are they to cook, when the larder is empty? What is the joy of motherhood, if their lives are to be tormented and embittered by the care of ill-fed children? If women are to share the responsibility, which hitherto has been man's, they cannot be denied the rights traditionally reserved for man. They are entitled, morally as well as legitimately, to economic independence. That means not only right of inheritance, which will be a mere legal formality in the case of the great majority. It means appearance of women in the departments of life hitherto closed for them. Thcir activities can no
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