प्राचीन भारत में शिक्षा (डॉ. ए.एस. अल्तेकर - गुरुकुल एवं बौद्ध विहार शिक्षण इतिहास)

IX] FEMALE EDUCATION 223 weaving should make special arrangement for sending cotton to and receiving the yarn from those women, who were cripled, or whose husbands were dead or had gone abroad, and who were thus compelled to seek work for their subsistence¹. There is evidence to show that during the 9th century also widows, who were unprovided for, used to have recourse to spinning for their maintenance². This humble but independent means of existence was available to the women in distress in India down to the middle of the last century, when the hand spinning and hand weaving industry was crushed out of existence by the mill competition. Female Education during 1200—1800 A. D. : It will be interesting to take here a rapid bird's eye view of the fortunes of female education during the next six centuries. During the Muslim rule the percentage of literacy among women went down very rapidly. Old, rich and cultured families were as a rule ruined by the political revolution, and they were no longer in a position to make special arrangements for the education of their girls. There were of course no schools for girls. Some new Hindu families did no doubt rise to importance under the new regime. But their number was very small and they did not generally possess sufficient culture to induce them to appoint teachers for their girls. Daughters of Rajput chiefs and some Bengali Zemindars were usually able to read and write down

1. II, 28; cf. याश्चानिष्कासिन्यः प्रोषितविधवा न्यङ्गाः कन्यका वाऽऽ- त्मानं बिभृयुः ताः स्वदासीभिरनुसार्य सोपग्रहं कर्म कारयितव्याः ।
2. मृतपतिकाया अनपत्याया असति भर्तृधनादौ दायिके च कर्तनादिना केनचिदुपायेन जीवन्त्याः.........। Medhātithi on Manu V, 157.