3-065-848 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Famine in India: women grinding corn, 1874. 'This feminine use of the double grindstone...is of great antiquity in Ireland, as well as in India, and likewise in the Holy Land...it seems that there are thousands of women in Ireland, and millions in Bengal, who are still doomed to that primitive task of their sex. The man, their lord and husband - we here speak only of the Indian household - is seen in the background, sitting very much at his ease, and enjoying the fumes of his pipe. It may be, indeed, that this indolent gentleman is not their husband, but only their master. Perhaps in the other two men, whom we perceive with their shovels in the field beyond, these women may claim an interest beyond that of fellow-servants. However this may be, the scene is an instance of one of the commonest experiences in the domestic life of an Asiatic people'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874.