Karaka, Dosabhai Framji: History of the Parsis: including their manners, customs, religion and present position ; in two volumes (Band 1) (London, 1884)

INTROD UCTION.

XXVll

difficulties. Not merely is there doubt as to the
necessity of educating women at all, but early mar-
riage and the jealously - guarded right of female
seclusion have placed bars in the way of instruction
which can only be gradually removed. It is some-
thing to be able to say that the Parsis—thanks, of
course, to the absence of caste distinctions and pre-
judices—have been able to break through these fetters
to a greater extent than any other Indian race; and
while female education is becoming an accomplished
fact instead of a mere phrase, it was only natural that a
great reform should have been simultaneously carried
out for the abolition of marriages between children.
At the present time Parsi ladies are beginning to
make that educational progress in which our men
have reached an advanced stage. One of the most
practical benefits that will thus be conferred on our
community, in addition to the introduction into the
domestic circle of a higher influence through female
knowledge, will be the gradual creation of a band of
lady doctors, who will be able to minister to sufferers
of the same sex not merely among their own race
but also among the Hindus and Mahomedans, who
have a reluctance to admit a man even on an errand
of mercy and succour into their female quarters.

But perhaps of all the subjects into which the
condition of a community may be divided, that
which will' probably attract most attention in con-