Sahivale Urjan Singh for Meywar.

Raja Mangal Singh, C. I. E. of Bhinai (Ajmere).
Barote Biranh Singh for Bhinai.

APPENDIX V.

MEMORANDUM BY RAJA SIR T.
MADAVA RAW.

1. According to the census of the year 1881, the num, ber of widows under ten years of age in all India is about 54,000.

2. According to the census of the Madras Presidency, for the year 1881, the number of widows under 10 years of age is about 5,600 in this Presidency.

3. The evil thus stated and the misery it implies. are indeed terrible.

4. In this connection attention is earnestly invited to the following remarks from the Madras census report.

"This gives us roughly an estimate of the age at which Brahman girls are married. Some are married before 7 years of age, nearly all are married before 10. The figures suggest that between 6 and 7 is the average age of marriage for females among Brahmans. This has the natural result of a high percentage of widows, and we find that nearly onethird of the Brahman women are widows."

"There are proportionately 50 per cent more widows among Brahmans than among other castes, and this surplus may be wholly attributed to the greater extent to which infant marriages occur among Brahmans than is the case with other castes. Certainly one-third, probably a larger proportion of the number of Brahman widows are widows owing to this cus tom; that is to say, if Brahmans countenanced infant marriage only to the extent that other castes do, there would be nearly 60.000 fewer unhappy women in their caste. The total figures show that there are 80,000 widows under 20, and the foregoing remarks suggest that Brahman custom is responsible for threefourths of this."Vol. I. pp. 71, 72.

5. It is evident that the earlier a girl is married, the greater are the chances of virgin widowhood.

6. It is also evident that if girls are married after they have attained 9 or 10 years of age, a vast number of virgin widowhoods will be altogether prevented.

7. It seems, therefore, desirable and necessary to establish some inducement to parents and guardians to delay the marriage of girls until they complete their 9th or 10th year

of age.

8. This much of delay is quite permissible according to the Sastras and also according to the custom.

9. I do not propose to compel the delay, but, only to create an inducement in its favour, leaving everything else as it, at present, is.

10. The best form of such inducement seems to be a fine for performing the marriage before the fixed limit of age.

11. The fine will, of course, be according to the circumstances of the parties concerned and calculated to produce a deterrent effect.

12. The effect of this arrangement will be to make the parents or guardians delay the marriage up to the age limit if possible, and thereby escape the fine, but if not possible to so delay, then to perform the marriage before that limit and pay the fine.

to

13. The effect of this will be to leave the existing order of things as little disturbed as possible and yet to diminish the number of marriages before the age limit, and thereby diminish the number of virgin widowhoods, which will be an important gain.

14. The inquiry into facts precedent to the imposition of fine may be safely left to a local punchayet.

15. The measure proposed will produce good only. 16. Any evil it may involve will be clearly outweighed by the good.

17. I prefer this moderate action to total inaction which I consider culpable in a high degree.

18. I decidly prefer fine to invalidity because the latter would involve the misery of the innocent children and cause deep and extensive popular discontent.

19. The fines should not be appropriated by the State, but applied to some purpose beneficial to virgin widows.

20. I would have two age limits; one for castes under obligation to marry the girl before puberty, and the other for castes at liberty to marry the girls after puberty.

21. More than this measure appears to me impossible at present, less than this measure would be culpable.

mum.

22. The friction attendant upon it will be at its mini

The List of the foregoing:

1. The longer the married life of a woman, the greater must be the chances of her widowhood.

2. The shorter the married life of a woman, the less the chances of her widowhood.

3. Therefore it is desirable in every possible way to shorten her married life.

4. The only way to shorten her married life is to delay her marriage.

5. Therefore delay the marriage as long as possible under existing rule and custom.

6. It may be delayed accordingly at least up to ten years of age.

7. This period is not inconsiderable in relation to the term of married life.

8. In many cases it may have the proportion of 25 per cent.

9. Therefore, in many cases it may prevent the chances of widowhood in that ratio.

10. Therefore I would create an inducement in favour of that much in delay.

11. The inducement being in the shape of a fine in preference to invalidity.

The best thing of all would be for parents and guardians to voluntarily delay the marriage of girls till the completion of the 10th year in the case of Brahmans, and longer in the case of non-Brahmans.

(Signed) RAJA SIR T. MADAVA ROW, K.c. §.I.

APPENDIX VI.

SHASTRIC TEXTS ON THE SUBJECT OF
INFANT MARRIAGE.

One of the penalties of arrested civilization is that, while stopping further growth, it sows the seeds of decay and death in the paralyzed social organism. The stationary' East is one of those popular fallacies which died a very hard death, though killed and exploded a hundred times. It is not possible for a living being, be the unit an individual or a collection of individuals, to remain stationary at any stage of progress achieved, for any considerable time, without, in fact, undergoing the slow process of decay and degradation. The full importance of this fact is not realized, because the span of national life is not, like that of the individual man, easily encompassed within our ordinary vision, and even in ordinary human life, many people imagine that they stand still, when in fact they are sinking in health and vigour, and lapsing into decrepitude and dotage. Perhaps, no better illustration of this. great truth can be cited than what is furnished by an historical survey of the changes which have taken place, during centuries of arrested growth, in the social usages regulating the institution of marriage in the Aryan population of this country. Without such a survey of the past, it is not possible to understand intelligently the present, or correctly to forecast or guide the future. The theory of evolution has in this country to be studied in its other aspect of what may conveniently be called devolution. When decay and corruption set in, it is not the fittest and the strongest that survives in the conflict of dead with living matter, but the healthy parts give way, and their place is taken by all that is indicative of the fact that corruption has set in, and the vital force is extinguished.

The study of the morbid symptoms of a nation's decay is no doubt very irksome, but the pain must be endured, and the scruples set aside. The Gordian knot of centuries of involution cannot be cut asunder by any spasmodic violence. The successive stages of slow decay must be closely watched and diagnosed, if we would work out the solution of the difficulty. Fortunately, unlike the individual, the doom of death is not