Pundita Ramabai’s home for widows is a very remarkable institution, and well repays one for a visit. It is a faith mission—that is, its members do not receive a salary, but depend upon donations for their support. What remains after the expenses of the establishment have been met is divided among the workers according to their needs. They are a very devoted band, with an orthodox, old-fashioned brand of religion that holds the wrath of God and the terrors of hell over these emotional women, whose only outlet for their emotions is their prayers, and at noon they are permitted to pray aloud and express their desires and their states of feeling. One day we heard a great buzzing, sounding from the distance like an immense swarm of bees, and found it was the 1,350 widows, rescued street women, and children having their noonday prayer. Some of them worked themselves into a veritable ecstasy of religious emotion, swaying their bodies, the tears running down their faces as they prayed for the forgiveness of their sins, real or imaginary.
The business manager was more interested in the practical than the religious aspects of the mission, and looked at the whole question with the eye of the man who has to provide for all these people who give nothing to the common good. When asked the outcome of it all, he said he could not see what good was being accomplished except in the actual saving of the lives. They could not marry, they could not support themselves, they were helpless, and would be a burden on others’ shoulders so long as they lived. He said: “Now look! There go four hundred women who should be married to-morrow; but who will marry them? No Hindu would dare break his caste by marrying one of them. It would completely ostracize him from his community. And again, we would not want to marry a Christian girl to a Hindu or a Mohammedan.”
I asked: “Are there no Christian boys to marry them?”
He replied: “There are not enough to go around, and even a Christian does not marry a widow.”
He laughed. “Yes, once in a while some man takes courage and comes here to find a wife, but he generally goes away without one. We seem here rather to go on the principle of getting rid of the speckled apples first, and if there is a girl with a hare lip, or only one eye, she is the one trotted out for inspection. Naturally, the boy beats a hasty retreat, saying he believes he does not want to get married to-day.”