the parties. It often happens that in the meantime the brides and the bridegrooms grow up. If however they have not come of age, the actual consummation is put off a few months or years as circumstances require, and when the time is ripe, the ceremony of Ana Valva is performed, and from that time the pair live as man and wife...... ..... In the Maharashtra and northern Canara, which form the other part of the Bombay Presidency, marriages are celebrated early, but the day of consummation is put off sometimes one, two, and even four years, to allow the pair to attain maturity. Their physique therefore remains unimpaired, and they are able to maintain their traditionary repute for activity and political agitation. 19. HURRICHUND SADASIVJI HATE A.M.I.C.E.-Early marriage is undoubtedly a great social evil in the native community. It tends to the physical deterioration of the race, to retard intellectual progress, to sap the foundation of mental and moral energies, to check the spirit of travel in foreign lands, and enterprise, to bring about ill-matched alliances, to produce evils of over-population, to burden one too early with the cares and responsibilities of a family, and in cases of girls to enforced widowhood. 20. BHASKARRAO BALKRISHNAJI PITALE AND NANA MOROBA. We beg to observe that in the higher castes of the Hindu community only, the system of early marriages and that of widow celibacy exists. In this indigent country, the practice of living together under one roof and under one head, is a great boon to Hindus, and early marriages (not infant marriages) considerably contribute towards attaining this end. A woman introduced into the family at the age of about twenty, will not easily yield to the orders, wishes, whims and caprices of the old ladies of the family. She will have no sympathy for them, nor will they have any for her, while a young girl at the age of 12 or so, introduced into the family will soon be attached to it. Sympathy for each other will reciprocally be generated in both. On the other hand, in the case of a woman, the chances of a rupture are imminent. This will entail dismemberment of the family and of the family estate. 21. BHAWOO MANSARAM, NAIK, POONA.-The custom of early marriages is gradually dying out of itself. 22. PREMCHAND ROYCHAND.-A Hindu girl while she is but eight or ten, is joined to a boy who is equally ignorant of the world. Even in his minority he becomes a father. We are eyewitnesses to innumerable instances of sickly children, with poverty staring in the face of their parents........ .I am aware of many instances of promising youths, leaving off their student life, and ready to be employed on any insignificant post. The reason is obvious. The boy not having means to command a liberal purse for the maintenance of conjugal feliciy, is driven to suffer any kind of humiliation to be able to earn something. It is then that, in the eyes of his relations, he is regarded as a man of the world. As time passes, he becomes the head of his family. He is thus ushered into the world at an unnatural age. Mr. Malabari's picture of the state of a Hindu bridegroom is in fact no exaggeration. The area of my experience may be limited, but so far as Gujrat communities are concerned, I can distinctly point to instances of men dying under the pressure of such suffering. 23. VEERCHAND DIPCHAND.-As regards Infant Marriage this practice has been in existence in India for ages in all sects, including Parsis and Mahomadans......... The principal obstacle in the way of the suppression of such practice is the caste system among Hindus, which divides the community into innumerable ramifications, each in a tangent of its own, and which seriously contracts the area of selection, the more so as intermarriage among blood relations is prohibited with a few exceptions. 24. MAHADEO WASUDEO BURVE, POONA.-The system of early or infant marriage no doubt leads to painful results......... Such marriages do take place in some of the higher classes of Hindu Society even up to this day; but as compared with the number of such cases 30 years back, they are now comparatively less, and the tendency of the general public is much opposed to them. Instances of another form of objectionable marriages viz. of a girl 12 to 15 years old with a boy of 8 to 10, are rare occurrences in the Deccan and Southern parts of the Bombay Presidency. 25. KARSANDAS VALABDAS.-Being a member of a community, in which both the above evil customs are in vogue, I am really so much horror-struck at the disastrous results thereof, that I am almost inclined to suggest to Government to lose no time in suppressing these long existing evils, which have been the source of detriment to social and domestic happiness, and physical deterioration of my country men, by the powerful aid of law...............But I am prevented from doing so by the fact that, under the present circumstances, legal measures in such matters will prove a source of terror and tyranny among the poor and ignorant classes. I therefore cordially approve of the remedies proposed by Mr. Malabari. 26. DIWAN BAHADUR MANIBHAI JUSBHAI, (DIWAN OF CUTCH.)-There is no doubt that the evils pointed out by Mr. Malabari do exist..............It may, I think, be safely assumed that the educated Hindus, as a class, regard the custom of infant marriage and enforced widowhood as baneful, and that the necessity of adopting some remedial measures in that connection, is fully recognized..... In the Kurdva Kanbi caste marriages take place at an interval of 12 years, the custom being based on a supposed oracle of the goddess. Amongst some other castes, it has been customary to celebrate marriages at certain intervals, with a view to ensure a saving of expenditure connected with caste feasts. Some castes again are very limited in extent, and, in some,. the number of girls is extremely small. Moreover Hindu parents generally do not keep their daughters unmarried beyond 12 years, and education has as yet made so little progress that in the struggle which the proposed restriction must give rise to, between marriage on one side and higher education on the other, the former will in most cases he preferred to the latter. 27. VURJEEVANDAS MADHAWDASS.-Marriages of boys. and girls under the age of puberty, prevail undoubtedly to some extent in this country; but I do not believe that generally speaking they are productive of discord between man and wife, after they come to live together, to a much greater extent than would be the case if the marriages occurred at a later period in life. 28. M. G. RANADE, POONA.-I had good reason to hope that as the result of several meetings held here, a sort of general agreement would be arrived at, among the leaders of native public opinion who were consulted on the subject. So far as the proposal to push on the age limits for boys especially, and also for girls is concerned, I am glad to see that such an agreement has been arrived at..... There can be no doubt that the evils complained of, are not so general nor so great as at first sight they appear to be, nor can it be said that there is no other side to the question. At the same time the statistical argument may be pushed too far, and may serve to blind, when it is intended to enlighten, the vision. Granted that the evils of "Infant Marriage and Enforced Widowhood" affect a much smaller number of individuals, and affect them less rigorously, than Mr. Malabari is inclined to admit, it does not follow that this circumstance in any way diminishes the gravity of the evil as far as it is admitted to exist, or lessen the responsibility of timely and sedative action on the part of those who are called upon to lead social movements in these matters. After making all allowances, it cannot be denied that Hindu society contrasts very unfavorably with all other civilized races, in both the points noticed so prominently by Mr. Malabari. It is also not denied that early marriage leads to early consummation, and thence to the physical deterioration of the race, that it sits as a heavy weight on our rising generation, enchains their aspirations, denies them the romance and freedom of youth, cools their love of study, checks enterprise, and generally dwarfs their growth, and fills the country with pauperism, bred of over-population by weaklings and sickly people, and lastly that it leads in many cases to all the horrors of early widowhood. All admit that in both these respects reform is desirable. How to achieve it, may be open to question, but the fact itself cannot be denied, and is not denied, even by those who take the extreme view, that some remedial action is possible or desirable. With those who are so wedded to the existing arrangements as to maintain that they are the best possible that can be conceived, it is useless to argue, for they ignore history, they ignore their best traditions, they ignore the dictates of their most solemn religious texts, they violate their natural conscience, and their sense of the fitness of things. They ignore history, traditions, and religious texts, because they know full well that the existing arrangements are later corruptions..............These people violate their natural conscience and their sense of the fitness of things because, while they mumble the old rites and pronounce the old declarations, they virtually trample them under foot,and while the men reserve to themselves all manner of freedom, no such measure of liberty is allowed to the poor women, even when widowed in childhood. These men virtually place themselves out of court in these discussions,and although they are strong in numbers and prejudices, their number will not avail them, and their prejudices are not entitled to much sympathy. 29. VENKAT KANGO KATTI.-I and my brother were joined at the age of 12 by our father, who was a Shastri, to girls who had yet to complete their 7th year. This was the type of marriage in those days, (i.e. 40 years ago); a girl was scarcely allowed to complete her 8th year |