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.