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Some Mistakes Corrected impulses of their own heart, but they had unrestricted liberty to go and come within the limits of self-imposed propriety. Prominent among the names of distinguished dames whose examples and wise precepts are embalmed in the sweet and holy measures of many hymns composed by themselves, is that of Vishvavara, the interpretation of which name is itself a commemoration of her virtues and learning - which is, the elect lady. Whoever will study the composition of this exalted woman will be inspired to know and to keep inviolable the mutual relations of husband and wife.
Indeed, in the ages to which I refer, the wife was the queen of the household, whose word was law to the members of the same, and who, like the mothers of this age, would arouse the household at early dawn and set everyone from the oldest to the youngest to his and her proper task, and whose example was the bright light to which all eyes were turned. I do not mean to say that all women and maidens in that age, any more than now, were virtuous and true. My object is to truthfully set forth the foundation facts, and the dominant; grace and purpose. Contemporaneous testimony before the days of Christ, but also now extant, of biggest authority, prove that the women of India were noticeable for their modesty and chastity Magastenes, the Greek ambassador, three hundred years before Christ, found India two reasons for great admiration. The first was the absence of slavery, and the second the chastity of the women. In a previous lecture, and to my classes also, I have given you in some detail a true account of the marriage customs of my people, and the constitution of the Hindu family, and will not, therefore at this time enlarge in this direction. But I will describe to you in a short way the sacred ceremony of marriage, leaving out the mere secular, social and incidental exercises. Among the hymns recited at that ceremony are such as these.
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