DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6523#0076
married. Then, inevitably also, the earlier marriage of
the girl brought about the earlier marriage of the boy.
Accepting Manu as laying down the rule for girls'
marriage as from 8 to 12, inevitably the boys'" age
was lowered and the period of Brahmacharya was
shortened. For, after all, a man of four-and-twenty
cannot, as a rule, be expected to marry a girl of 8.
She would be a plaything not a wife, a toy not a
comrade. I do indeed know of pitiful cases, in which
men long past middle age have married little children
like this. But I look on them as one of the outrages
that you find from time to time in every country, and
not the natural spontaneous turning of the man to
the woman, when both are young, which is the
sanction of man-iage and is for the welfare of the
State. I submit then that the real causes behind
early marriage are the lowering of the status of women,
the lessening of women's education, and only thirdly
the disorder and tumult coming from repeated foreign
invasions, which made it well-nigh necessary to
secure for the young girl some protection outside the
paternal home. It is well to recognise historical
causes, for then we can see what the remedies are
to be. Let us, for a moment, pause on the melan-
choly figures which I take from this last Census Report
dealing only with the Presidency of Madras. If I
had to deal with that of Bengal my figures would be
far more terrible, although they are in truth terrible
enough here. I have picked them out here for
the girl brought about the earlier marriage of the boy.
Accepting Manu as laying down the rule for girls'
marriage as from 8 to 12, inevitably the boys'" age
was lowered and the period of Brahmacharya was
shortened. For, after all, a man of four-and-twenty
cannot, as a rule, be expected to marry a girl of 8.
She would be a plaything not a wife, a toy not a
comrade. I do indeed know of pitiful cases, in which
men long past middle age have married little children
like this. But I look on them as one of the outrages
that you find from time to time in every country, and
not the natural spontaneous turning of the man to
the woman, when both are young, which is the
sanction of man-iage and is for the welfare of the
State. I submit then that the real causes behind
early marriage are the lowering of the status of women,
the lessening of women's education, and only thirdly
the disorder and tumult coming from repeated foreign
invasions, which made it well-nigh necessary to
secure for the young girl some protection outside the
paternal home. It is well to recognise historical
causes, for then we can see what the remedies are
to be. Let us, for a moment, pause on the melan-
choly figures which I take from this last Census Report
dealing only with the Presidency of Madras. If I
had to deal with that of Bengal my figures would be
far more terrible, although they are in truth terrible
enough here. I have picked them out here for