continent of India, are unknown in Burma. Here
women marry when they are of age, and after they
have seen somewhat of the world; they marry, for the
most part, whomsoever
they will, and from love.
They are not handed
ove r as chattels to a
man whom they know
not; but are courted and
won. The Married Women’s
Property Act, a
recent flower of British
civilisation, has in effect
been established for centuries
in Burma. In this
country, where the women
earn so much, the woman’s
earnings are her own.
Divorce is easily obtained;
but seldom asked for. The
lightness of the marriage
Jaws, the readiness of
the Burmese woman to
a p a g o d a t r u s t e e enter into an easy alliance,
shock the virtue
of the strenuous foreigner; but within her ideals she
is a perfectly proper, modest, and well-mannered woman.
She is of the world to her finger tips, and at theatres
and elsewhere her appreciation of the sallies of the
actors is of Elizabethan frankness; yet her conduct
46
there is beyond reproach. Amorous vulgarities in
public are unknown in Burma. When she is young,
the Burmese woman is, after her own type, fair and
BEGIN N IN G L IF E
attractive, full of laughter, and fun, and the enjoyment
of life ; witty and self-possessed ; seldom, if ever, brazenfaced
; frank to a degree. It is one of the wayside
amusements of travel in Burma to see her at her
toilette before the world, to see her calmly unwind