Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s6.6

v2.c27.s6.6

The Origin of Infanticide.—What are the causes, we may ask, sufficiently powerful to induce the suppression of a feeling which every sentient being has in common for its offspring? To suppose the Rajput devoid of this sentiment would argue his deficiency in the ordinary attributes of humanity: often is he heard to exclaim, " Accursed the day when a woman child was born to me!" The same motive which studded Europe with convents, in which youth and beauty were immured until liberated by death, first prompted the Rajput to infanticide: and, however revolting the policy, it is perhaps kindness compared to incarceration. There can be no doubt that monastic seclusion, practised by the Frisians in France, the Langobardi in Italy, and the Visigoths in Spain, was brought from Central Asia, the cradle of the Goths.² It is, in fact, a modification of the same feeling which characterizes the Rajput and the ancient German warrior—the dread of dishonour to the fair: the former raises the poniard to the breast of his wife rather than witness her captivity, and he gives the opiate to the infant, whom, if he cannot portion and marry to her equal, he dare not see degraded [637].