Indian cities.[27] A different evolution, however, is still more
manifest at this present time. It almost seems as if at first modern
life were to bend to the custom of the seclusion of women rather than
bend the custom to itself. The Lady Dufferin Association for Medical Aid
to Indian Women is bringing trained medical women _into_ the zenanas and
harems, and every year is also seeing a larger number of Indian
Christian and Br[=a]hma ladies set up as independent practitioners, able
to treat patients _within_ the women's quarters. In the year 1905 a lady
lawyer, Miss Cornelia Sorabjee, a Parsee Christian lady, was appointed
by the Government of Bengal to be a legal adviser to the Bengal Court of
_Wards_, or landowning minors. Zenana or harem ladies, e.g. the widowed
mothers of the minors, would thus be able to consult a trained lawyer at
first hand _within_ the zenana or harem. Missionaries are discussing the
propriety of authorising certain Christian women to baptize women
converts _within_ the zenanas.[28] Long ago missions organised zenana
schools, and now native associations have begun to follow in their
steps. In all Indian Christian churches, women of course are present at
public worship, but they always sit _apart_ from the men, a segregation
even more strictly followed by the Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j or Indian Theistic
Association. For the sake of zenana women, the Indian Museum in Calcutta
is closed one day each week to the male sex, and in some native theatres
there is a ladies gallery in which ladies may see and not be seen behind
a curtain of thin lawn. Movement even towards a compromise, it is good
to observe.

[Sidenote: Prohibition of the marriage of widows.]

The prohibition of the marriage of widows has already been referred to
as bound up with caste ideas of marriage and with social standing, and
as the most deeply rooted part of the social inferiority of women. By