"It will seem incredible to the provincial mind that the same people that tolerated such institutions as child marriage, temple prostitution and suttee was also pre-eminent in gentleness, decency and courtesy. Aside from a few devadasis, prostitutes were rare in India, and sexual propriety was exceptionally high. “It must be admitted,” says the unsympathetic Dubois, “that the laws of etiquette and social politeness are much more clearly laid down, and much better observed by all classes of Hindus, even by the lowest, than they are by people of corresponding social position in Europe.” ... A Hindu woman might go anywhere in public without fear of molestation or insult; indeed the risk, as the Oriental saw the matter, was all on the other side. Manu warns men: “Woman is by nature ever inclined to tempt man; hence a man should not sit in a secluded place even with his nearest female relative”; and he must never look higher than the ankles of a passing girl."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Civilization
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
The Story of Civilization
288 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by The Story of Civilization →
Related Quotes
"The Argives ascribed the foundation of their city to Pelasgic Argus, the hero with a hundred eyes; and its first flou…"
"Apparently the legislators felt that to alter certain customs, or to establish new ones, the safest procedure would b…"
"When an advanced thinker asked Lycurgus to establish a democracy Lycurgus replied, “Begin, my friend, by setting it u…"
"He [Solon] laid it down that those who remained neutral in seditions should lose their citizenship, for he felt that …"
"I wish to tell as much as I can, in as little space as I can, of the contributions that genius and labor have made to…"
"Man is not willingly a political animal. The human male associates with his fellows less by desire than by habit, imi…"
"If the average man had had his way there would probably never have been any state. Even today he resents it, classes …"
""For barbarism is always around civilization, amid it and beneath it, ready to engulf it by arms, or mass migration, …"
"The civilization of Babylonia was not as fruitful for humanity as Egypt’s, not as varied and profound as India’s, not…"
"He [Solon] made it a crime to speak evil of the dead, or to speak evil of the living in temples, courts, or public of…"