XXXVI March 27, 19021
It is always said of the girls here that, “they are well provided for, and comfortably taken care of.” Have they a right to complain? Well means, well-being, happiness, the opposite of misery; and misery is what the women feel, and yet they have no right to complain—they are said to act always of their own free will. But how about their children? What is more wretched than a sad childhood, than children who too early have learned to read the shadow side of life?
I once copied something from a speech by Prof. Max Müller, the great German scholar who was so learned in Eastern tongues. It was almost as follows: “Polygamy, as it is practiced by the Eastern people is of benefit to women and girls, who could not live in their environment without a man to take care of them and to protect them.”
Max Müller is dead; we cannot call him here to show him the benefits of that custom.
Notes
1 To Mevrouw Abendanon.