EPIDEMICS OF SUICIDE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 7, 9 January 1930, Page 3

EPIDEMICS OF SUICIDE.

HOME LIFE MADE HIDEOUS. BRUTAL MOTHERS-IN-LAW. There lias been an alarming increase in Calcutta of suicides among Bengali girl-wives. Scarcely a week passes without at least two cases being reported. The favourite method of terminating life was formerly a draught of mustard oil in which opium had been mixed, but since the introduction of a strict supervision of drug stores, these unhappy women have taken to drenching their clothes with paraffin and setting themselves alight. The coroners' inquiries invariably showthat these wives, still in their teens and often immature, are driven to death by inhuman cruelty in the home. Sometimes the husband is the cause, but most frequently his mother, sisters, and other relatives are responsible. In one of two cases reported one day recently, the jury returned a verdict of suicide en account of ill-treatment by the husband and his mother, their inhumanity being due to the failure of the girl-wife to bear children. It was revealed in the other case that the victim, Parulbala Dassi, aged 16, informed a doctor as she lay dying that her mother-in-law was always* nagging her and suggesting that she should burn or poison herself because her father had not given her a gold necklace. The husband had taken no notice of his wife's ill-treatment.