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FRAGMENTS OF A PRISONER'S DIARY
case. That is a fact, and that fact alone is going to revolutionise the relation between man and woman, to compel the recognition of women, no less than that of men, is individuals, to promote the rise of a new type of family on the ruins of the old which, doomed by history, cannot be saved by simple ideal. isation.
The great bulk of women, those belonging to the labouring classes, have never enjoyed the privilegc, although they paid the price, and more. They have always been, not only housckcepers and breeding machines, but also bcasts of burden, never toys. Thus, more than nincty per cent of the Indian manhood is not entitled to take up the paternalistic attitude towards women. They ricvertheless do. That is the heritage of patriarchal culture. A palpable untruth has become a matter of current belief. Not only men tell the lie; women also believe in it. In cither case, it is a matter of habit. Prejudice, fostered through ages by religion, and fortified by ignorance, makes them blind to the stark realities of daily life.
Now, the middle-class also is sinking down to the position of the masses living on manual labour. An increasingly large number of its male members find themselves unable to offer economic security to women. So, the traditional protective or patcrnalistic attitude towards women remains a practical proposition only for the thin upper stratum of society--for those fortunate few who
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