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5. MAHADEO WASUDEO BARVE.-Early or infant marriages are not specially enjoined or prescribed by the Hindu Shastras. They simply permit them, and it was only in wellto-do classes that these were resorted to, more out of fashion than as a necessity.

6. NANABHAI HARIDAS.-With the Hindus, marriage is a religious sacrament (Sanskara) according to all the authorities on the subject, its performance in the case of a girl cannot be delayed beyond a certain period, and according to some authorities its performance a year or two before is most meritorious. That period is puberty, which is generally attained in India at the age of 12. So long, therefore, as the masses of the people continue to pay respect to these authorities there is not much hope of the maximum age for a girl's marriage being raised.

7. M. G. RANADE.-The Grihya Sutra texts, the earlier Smritsi, and the great epics, all contemplate and illustrate a state of society, where both men and women attained mature age before they took upon themselves the resposibilities of a married life. Women were educated, and sent to school, being eligible for the Upanayan or initiation ceremony. The boys had a twelve years' school course (Asvalayana Sutra) during which they were required to observe a self-denying course of life, in which abstention from sexual intercourse occupied a prominent place (Apastamba Sutra). The declarations made at the marriage celebration by the bride and the bridegroom, the significance of certain of the rites themselves, especially the fourth day ceremony, all tend to show that these rites and declarations were not meant for children in their teens. Marriage itself was a voluntary condition to be assumed when its necessity was realised. The woman married once by pledge of word, or gift of hand, was open to the choice of marrying again, under certain contingencies, equally with the man. These occasions were so numerous, in the first instance, that they had to be cut down to five contingencies. All this history is plainly spread before us, and it shows the

greatness of our present fall from a time, which, with strange inconsistency, we still regard as our venerated and ancestral past.

8. VENKUT RANGO KATTI, KANARESE TRANSLATOR E. D. THE DHARMA SINDHU SAYS:-"From the fifth to the 8th year of a girl's age is the proper period for her marriage. The two years after the 6th are the best. A girl should not be married before the 6th year, as Soma (the moon) Gandharva (a celestial singer) and Agni (fire) claim her each for two years from her birth. Marriage in the 9th and 10th years is neither good nor bad. In the 11th year it is mean, and in the 12th and succeeding years it requires prayaschittu (purification)

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If a girl comes to puberty before marriage, her father, mother, and brothers fall in hell, the girl becomes Shudri, and so does her husband. In such case, the following is the mode of purification. The giver of the girl should give away as many cows as the number of times she was is her monthly course, or one cow, or he should feed Brahmins according to his means, and be fit to give the girl in marriage. The girl on fasting 3 days, and then drinking cow's milk, and giving to a Brahmin's daughter an ornament, with jewels set in it, becomes fit for marriage. The bride-groom will not be guilty if he marries her after offering libations of gourd to the fire. When a girl arrives at puberty before marriage for want of a giver, she should wait for 3 years, and then choose her own husband.

9. RANCHORELALL CHOTALALL, (AHMEDABAD).—There is no religious objection whatever to keeping a boy unmarried until 20 years or any later period.

It is a general feeling among the Hindus that, girls should not be allowed to remain unmarried beyond the age of 10 or 12 years. This practice is based upon the authority of certain texts of the Shastras, and upon the idea that it is not safe to allow a girl to remain unmarried after 12 years, lest she might go astray.

10. BHOLANATH SARABHAI, (AHMEDABAD).—The illustrious and primitive Hindu Law-giver Manu enjoins that a man aged 30 years should marry a girl of 12. According to Hindu Shastras, after being invested with the sacordotal thread, one should pursue the study of Vedas at least for 12 years............ ...During the Vedic period, girls were allowed to make self-choice of husbands.........From the hymns uttered at the marriage ceremony, and from the wording of the promise made by the husband to his wife, it is quite clear that a girl of 8, 9 or 10 years' age cannot understand the meaning of the promise.

11. SAKHARAM ARJUN.-Sufficient evidence can be adduced to prove that there was a time in the history of the Hindus, when marriage was performed at an age when the parties were capable of immediately consummating it, and the only safe inference that can be drawn from those texts of the Vedas which give directions about the mode of consummating the marriage is, that the marriageable age contemplated therein must have been a considerably advanced one; for these instructions would be unintelligible and meaningless to parties in whose especial behalf they were laid down, if they happened to be of tender years.

12. S. H. CHIPLONKAR.-There is nothing in the Hindu religion, to compel parents to marry their daughters before the 10th year on penalty of excommunication. According to the Hindu Shastras the bride must invariably be younger than the bridegroom.

13. GUNPATRAW C. SASTRI (KASWA).-I am of opinion that it is an infringement of the dispensations of the Shastras to marry or betroth children so soon as the people are now in the habit of doing, and I consider it an infringement of the physical laws to saddle the rising generation with the burden of children, while they are yet in their teens.

14. GAURISHANKAR UDEYSHANKAR, (BHAVNAGAR).—The Nirnaya Sindhu, a modern work of recognized authority on the law and customs of the Hindus in this Presidency, enforces

marriages proper on a girl at 10 years of age, but extends the limit to 11 under a penance, if it be found inconvenient to solemnige it at the age of 10. The Dharma Sindhu, another modern work on Hindu law, says :-" For girls,nine and ten are middling good ages, eleven a bad age, and twelve is one requiring the observance of penance to wipe away the sin." (See chap. iii). Further on the author of the Dharma Sindhu says: "If a girl resides under the roof of her father unmarried up to 12 years of age, her father commits the sin of killing an unborn child. The girl at that age should marry herself without the intervention of her father."

15. RAM SHASTRI.-A reference to the Shastras ( 1. Nirnaya Sindhu 2 Sanskar Mayukh, 3 Sanskar Kaustubh, 4 Prayog Parijat, 5 Mitakshara, 6 Smrityarthsar, 7 Madan Parijat, 8 Parashar Madhao, 9 Sanskar Ratna Mala, 10 Kalanirnya, 11 Purushartha Chintamoni, 12 Asharadinkarodyot, 13 Piyashadhara, 14 Jyotirinband &c.) shows that a boy can be married after he is 11 years old and till youth lasts; and that for the marriage of a girl, the 5th and 6th years of her age are not proper, that the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th years are proper, that the 11th and 12th years and the further period till the appearence of the menses are improper, and that they cannot be married after the menses have appeared. "The girl who sees the menses in her father's house (before marriage) is impure; her father is guilty of bhorunmahatya that is killing of the embryo. She is considered to be a vrishali or Shudra female. The Brahman who marries her is weak in intellect; no trust should be placed in him, and nobody should dine with him, and he should be considered as the husband of a Shudra woman."

The Shastras do not sanction the marriage of an old man with a girl. Youth and good health are the chief requisites of a bridegroom. It is stated in the Prayaschitta Hemodari that a man above 50 should not marry. The bride should always be younger than the bridegroom

16. PANDIT GUTTULAL.-Many wise persons believing that the real menstrual period commences from the 11th or the 12th, year consider the 10th as the latest marriagiable year. In support of this, there is the following in the Purans. "A girl is called a Gowri in the 8th year of her age, a Rohini in the 9th year, a Kanya in the 10th year, and after that a Rajasvala, that is one having the menses.

The menses are found in women in their 11th or 12th year. If the flower does not disclose itself out, still it exists within. One goes to the Nak world by giving a Gowri in marriage, to the Vaikunth by giving a Rohini, to the Brahma world by giving a Kanya, and the Raurav hell by giving a rajasvala."

In the Brahma Puran, in the Gautami Mahatmya, it is stated: "a father should try his best to perform the marriage of his daughter from the 4th year of her age upwards, till before the completion of the 10th year".........Still the marriage of a girl should not be performed before the completion of her 6th year, as there is a prohibition against it in the following and other verses.

"A girl should not be married before she is 6 years old, because in the first two years of her age she is enjoyed by the god Som, in the next two years by Gandharv, and then in the next 2 years by Nal."

Manu says. "A man aged 30 should marry a good looking girl aged 12 years, and a man aged 16 should marry a girl aged 8 years. By marrying a girl before this time, a man neglects his religion.".

The time for a man's marriage is not assigned with the same precision as that for a girl's marriage. The thirty years' age &ca., mentioned is not suited to be carried into practice in the present times. It is objectionable, if the present period of man's life be taken into consideration...

There is every possibility of there being occasions for a man's fall on account of the breaking of the abstinence vow,

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