and between eleven and twelve an undesirable course, according to the Shastras.

MR. CHENTSAL RAO.-According to custom also, which is regarded, I think, erroneously, as the law, every girl has to be married before she attains her puberty, and if she is not so married, she loses her caste. Girls in this country usually attain puberty at twelve or thirteen, and sometimes even so early as eleven, so that the latest period up to which a girl can be safely kept unmarried is ten.

MR. NANDSHANKAR.-There is no excommunication for prolonged virginity, that I know of. But a girl of thirteen or fourteen is certainly regarded by her parents as a "bundle of snakes."

BABU PEARY MOHAN SIRKAR.-Generally, puberty is attained after the twelfth and before the fourteenth year. But as there is no knowing when this event will happen, Hindu parents marry their girls at or before the age of twelve.

HON'BLE MR. NANABHAI HARIDAS.-The performance of the marriage sacrament in the case of a girl, according to all the authorities on the subject, cannot be delayed beyond the period of puberty which is generally attained in India at the age of twelve. According to some authorities, its performance a year or two before is meritorious.

MR. GAURISHANKER.-How do you explain the text in the Dharma Sindhu that eleven is a bad age, and twelve is one requiring the observance of a penance to wipe away the sin?

A HINDU LAWYER-And how do you explain the following passage in Steele's "Law and Custom of Hindu Castes within the Dekhan Provinces ?"-" A Brahmin is enjoined to remain with his Guru as a student until twenty years of age, or at east sixteen, and on leaving him, to marry. Beyond that

period there is no limit at which he may not be married (Koustoobh.) A female should be married at eight years of age, but not under six (Niranaysindhu and Mitakshara.) Nor can the marriage be delayed to her twelfth year, except by reason of distress. (Koustoobh and Mitakshara.) Should the signs of puberty appear before the marriage of a Brahmini, she may be married after certain prescribed ceremonies (Niranaysindhu); or married privately as one who has lost caste; or even abandoned altogether (Skand Purana.)" If you follow these shastras, then ten is the proper age, if not eight.

PROFESSOR R. G. BHANDARKAR.-There is no insuperable religious objection to marrying a girl after ten or twelve, for the penance enjoined is not heavy.

RAO SAHIB V. N. MANDLIK.-In the old Hindu institutes the marriageable age for females is twelve; but that for males has been contracted by the gradual curtailment of student-life, and a change in the social usages of the people.

A HINDU SOCIAL REFORM MISSIONARY.-I should like to know how this age of twelve has been contracted to ten. Are we to follow the old institutes or are we to follow the new usage? It won't do to say that Manu enjoins a low age for girls and they must therefore be married at that age, but that boys may be married at an age not allowed by Manu. If you say the usage should be followed-even if it be opposed to Manu-then it follows that Manu's code has been departed from and may be departed from with impunity, but that any attempt to revert to it should be tabooed as a violation of the Shastras and visited with excommunication. A fine pass have we come to!

MR. K. T. TELANG.-The conclusion that I have come to is that neither caste nor Shastra, as popularly understood, exacts anything more than that girls should not remain unmarried after attaining puberty.

MR. M. G. RANADE.-Yes, for the declarations made at the marriage celebration by the bride and the bride-groom, 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.

BABU HORI M. CHANDRA.-Manu says in chap. IX: "Three years let a damsel wait, though she be marriageable, but after that term let her choose for herself a bridegroom of equal rank." He also says: "A damsel, though marriageable, may stay at home till her death, if a suitable bridegroom cannot be found."

A HINDU ANTIQUARY.—And one of the oldest precedents is that of the royal maiden Sulabha who could find no suitable husband and devoted herself to pious deeds.*

MR. TRIMULRAO VENKATESH.-I tell you what, gentlemen. Suppose the dates and numbers of all Regulations and Acts passed up to date by the Government of India and the Local Governments, together with those sections which repeal former enactments or define the territorial extent over which an Act is to operate, were effaced altogether, and the bare enactments placed in the hands of the public-what a beautiful Babel of Law would we all have, and how mighty glad the lawyers would be to have confusion worse confounded? Well this is the real state of what we call our Hindu Law-so let us no more pelt texts at one another.

A HINDU SOCIAL REFORM MISSIONARY.-Then let us at least see if 10 or 12 or a higher age is a proper age for girls.

RAO SAHIB S. H. CHIPLONKAR.—Why, even in England a Law book tells us that "if a boy under 14 or a girl under 12 years of age marries, their marriage is only inchoate and imperfect, but not necessarily void."

* Santiparvan 7882-7983 Muir-1430

RAO SAHEB V. N. MANDLIK.-And in such an advanced country as the United States of America, the age of consent is the same, viz., 12 for females and 14 for males. In New York an attempt was made to raise these periods to 14 and 17 respectively, but they were so disrelished by the people that a law was passed in 1830, restoring the old periods of 12 and 14 as before.

A HINDU LAWYER.-I don't know anything about the laws of New York, but I know that our own Legislature has considered these limits too low. Act XV. of 1872, for example, lays down, as regards Native Christians, that "the age of the man intending to be married shall exceed 16 years, and the age of the woman intending to be married shall exceed 13 years". (S. 60.) Act XXI. of 1866 which also related to such converts, prohibited them from suing for the conjugal socie ty of their unconverted wives, unless these latter had completed the age of thirteen years. (S. 4 and the Definitions.) In Act XV. of 1865, the Legislature enacted for the Parsis that, "no suit shall be brought in any court to enforce any marriage between Parsis, or any contract connected with or arising out of any such marriage, if at the date of the institution of the suit, the husband shall not have completed the age of sixteen years, or the wife shall not have completed the age of fourteen years". (S. 37.) And lastly, in Act III. of 1872 it laid down for Brahmos that, at the time of the marriage, the age of the husband and wife must be 18 and 14 respectively. (S. 2) It is remarkable that the Rajput Sirdars, at their recent meeting in Ajmere, adopted these latter limits, and in my humble opinion a marriage contracted by parties under this age is a premature marriage which often ruins both body and mind. The low age of consent in England has also been recently raised, and it should not be forgotten that in England, if not the United States, the people are always in advance of their laws. One small fact will make this clear. In England the proportion of married women between 15 and 20 years of age is only 31 per cent, while in the North-West Provinces alone it is 87.8 per cent.

MR. T. PATTABHIRAM.-I don't understand how early marriage ruins body and mind. I always thought the Brahmins had introduced this custom of child marriage after the Vedic period, to keep their blood and stock pure and untainted, and I always believed that, though weak in physique, their superior intellect was due to this cause.

A HINDU SOCIAL REFORM MISSIONARY.-This is a most novel theory. I don't know whether by purity you mean poverty of blood, for this last is most certainly the result of this pernicious usage, according to the medical opinions collected by the late lamented Keshub Chunder Sen. Even Parasara-the supposed author of the principal text quoted a little while ago by our right reverend Pandit Gattulal-says: "A son is the very same as he by whom he was begotten."* Probably Messrs. Chiplonkar and Pradhan are right in holding that the custom is of recent growth among the Deccan Brahmins, and hence they retain their old intellectual superiority-for sufficient time has not yet elapsed to develop by heredity the effects of the new custom to such an extent as to bring them home to every observer. I don't know if any other class of Brahmins given to premature marriages possess any intellectual superiority.

MR. GAURISHANKAR UDEYSHANKAR.-Whatever may be the Hindu law on the subject, and whatever may be the effects of the custom, let us first discuss whether the custom prevails among us. I cannot say how the case stands in the Deccan, but in Gujarat child marriages are confined to a few among the upper classes, such as Brahmins, Kshatryas and Wanias.

MR. R. B. TALVALKAR.-I should say such marriages are very rife in some sections of the Gujarati Brahmins. If these Brahmins are excepted, the number of girls married under fifteen in the Bombay Presidency will be not more than 30 per cent.

Santiparvan 10861, Mahabharata, Muir I-131.