At least where the women are concerned, there are signs of a growing understanding between the United States and India. This country has proverbially been associated with too fertile a womanhood and a birthrate too flatteringly high. The United States now promises to keep us company….
It may also be an indication of the secret admiration western women must have been cherishing towards their sisters in densely populated regions.
The good old Indian lady, for instance, was content with bearing – and bearing all the time. The good old American lady, on the contrary, could not bear even the idea of prolonged bearing.
She was more attracted by the idea of leaving the hearth behind and projecting herself into foreign lands where she could see such wonders of true life as a 17-year-old mother and a woman with 14 children.
She would on occasions be so thrilled and inspired as to go back home and write a book, scientific of course, on the subject.
From now on, however, the admiration will be mutual. It may even result in the American way of life leading Americans to the Indian way. In the U.S.A., so census experts point out, maternity starts as early as in India – a fact which is unique to these two countries….
We may also rest confident in the hipe that the progressive trend in the United States will be kept up in the years to come, whatever new shapes the Kremlin menace might adopt, for from Moscow even the assurance is available that in co-existence the more we are the merrier.
(EDIT, April 8, 1956.)
