DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22900#0351
3°4
HISTORY OF THE PARSIS.
[CHAP. VI.
ing the example of the Hindus and Mahomedans,
among whom they dwelt, did not make the least
effort to educate their women. They did not see the
advantages of doing so. What does a woman want to
learn for ? they may have asked as others have. She
has not to go out like men in order to earn her bread.
It was thus they replied to. any question which might
be put concerning female education. In those days
people generally thought that the extreme limit to
which female education should extend was to teach
their wives and daughters to scrawl letters, in order
that they might be able to write out a list of clothes
before sending them to the washerman or laundress ;
to understand the daily bazaar expenses, which, if
they exceeded five rupees, would pass the limits of
their comprehension; and to read the name and
residence of their husbands or fathers on a small bit
of paper when it was sent from the market with
the fuel or corn. There might have been a few
exceptions of clever ladies, but the three acquire-
ments of "reading, writing, and arithmetic" were
luxuries indeed, and the possessor was envied on
account of her superior training.
A great change, however, at last began to take
place. The young men who had been educated in
Government schools and colleges viewed the question
of female education in its proper light. They felt
the mental inferiority of their better halves. They
HISTORY OF THE PARSIS.
[CHAP. VI.
ing the example of the Hindus and Mahomedans,
among whom they dwelt, did not make the least
effort to educate their women. They did not see the
advantages of doing so. What does a woman want to
learn for ? they may have asked as others have. She
has not to go out like men in order to earn her bread.
It was thus they replied to. any question which might
be put concerning female education. In those days
people generally thought that the extreme limit to
which female education should extend was to teach
their wives and daughters to scrawl letters, in order
that they might be able to write out a list of clothes
before sending them to the washerman or laundress ;
to understand the daily bazaar expenses, which, if
they exceeded five rupees, would pass the limits of
their comprehension; and to read the name and
residence of their husbands or fathers on a small bit
of paper when it was sent from the market with
the fuel or corn. There might have been a few
exceptions of clever ladies, but the three acquire-
ments of "reading, writing, and arithmetic" were
luxuries indeed, and the possessor was envied on
account of her superior training.
A great change, however, at last began to take
place. The young men who had been educated in
Government schools and colleges viewed the question
of female education in its proper light. They felt
the mental inferiority of their better halves. They