At first Kopal-Kundala cast down her eyes, and, when she did so, the stranger asked her, "Who are you?"
If a year before, in the thorn jungles of Hidgellee, Kopal-Kundala had been asked this question, she could instantly have given a connected reply; but now Kopal-Kundala had to a certain extent acquired the nature of a family woman,[1] so that she could not at once
- ↑ It is wrong for a respectable woman to look at or talk to a stranger. Among the higher classes it is of course considered wrong for a woman even to go in a public place unless in a conveyance or palki, or accompanied by other matrons. It has been said that the zenana system was the result of the Mohammedan invasion. But probably women were secluded long before that. The word oborodh (female apartments) was used before Mohammedan times. Panini gives as an epithet of a king's wife "asuryam-pasya," i.e. "one who never sees the sun." In Ramayaná (vi. 99-33) there is clear allusion to some sort of seclusion being practised. Rama thinks it necessary to excuse himself for permitting his wife to expose herself to the gaze of the crowd.
Chivalry and reverence for the fair sex belonged only to European nations of northern origin, who were the first to hold that "inesse fœminis sanctum aliquid" (Tac. Germ. 8). Yet it is clear from many passages that women had more liberty than now. Rama says to Vihishana:—"In great calamities, at marriages, at the public choice of a husband by maidens, at a sacrifice, at assemblies, it is allowable for all the world to look upon women." Sakuntala appears in the public court of King Dushyanta; Damayanti travels about by her-
