DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0510
500 Modern Theism. Rammohun Roy's successors.
many eventually did under the name of Brahmikas, worship-
ping at first either behind screens, or in a separate room.
A still more important matter was the reform of marriage
customs. Vast difficulties beset any reform in this direction.
Marriage is the most ancient, sacred, and inviolable of all
Hindu institutions, and its due performance the most com-
plicated of all religious acts. It involves intricate questions
of caste, creed, property, family usage, consanguinity, and
age. To remodel the institution of marriage is to reorganize
the whole constitution of Indian society, and to create, so to
speak, an entirely new social atmosphere. The first change
advocated by the Reformers had reference to the abolition of
child-marriages. Nothing has tended to the physical and
moral deterioration of the people so much as child-marriage.
It has not only resulted. in excessive population, rapidly
multiplying till reduced to so low a standard of physical
and moral stamina that every failure of crops adds demoral-
ization to starvation. It is an ever-present source of weak-
ness and impoverishment, destructive of all national vigour,
and fatal to the development of national thrift and economy.
The progressive Reformers felt that until this evil was re-
moved there could be no hope of India's regeneration.
Of course, another reform aimed at had reference to poly-
gamy. No man was to be allowed more than one wife.
Then widows were to be released from enforced celibacy.
And here, in justice to Raj Narain Bose, it should be stated
that he was the first to introduce the remarriage of widows
into his family; a reform for which the inhabitants of the
village in which he was born threatened to stone him to
death. As to the marriage ceremony itself, all semblance of
idolatrous worship, all foolish ritual, all noisy music, needless
display and unnecessary expense caused by spreading the
festivities over many days were to be eliminated. Debendra-
nath himself was induced to set the example of celebrating
a nuptial ceremony in his own family according to this simple
many eventually did under the name of Brahmikas, worship-
ping at first either behind screens, or in a separate room.
A still more important matter was the reform of marriage
customs. Vast difficulties beset any reform in this direction.
Marriage is the most ancient, sacred, and inviolable of all
Hindu institutions, and its due performance the most com-
plicated of all religious acts. It involves intricate questions
of caste, creed, property, family usage, consanguinity, and
age. To remodel the institution of marriage is to reorganize
the whole constitution of Indian society, and to create, so to
speak, an entirely new social atmosphere. The first change
advocated by the Reformers had reference to the abolition of
child-marriages. Nothing has tended to the physical and
moral deterioration of the people so much as child-marriage.
It has not only resulted. in excessive population, rapidly
multiplying till reduced to so low a standard of physical
and moral stamina that every failure of crops adds demoral-
ization to starvation. It is an ever-present source of weak-
ness and impoverishment, destructive of all national vigour,
and fatal to the development of national thrift and economy.
The progressive Reformers felt that until this evil was re-
moved there could be no hope of India's regeneration.
Of course, another reform aimed at had reference to poly-
gamy. No man was to be allowed more than one wife.
Then widows were to be released from enforced celibacy.
And here, in justice to Raj Narain Bose, it should be stated
that he was the first to introduce the remarriage of widows
into his family; a reform for which the inhabitants of the
village in which he was born threatened to stone him to
death. As to the marriage ceremony itself, all semblance of
idolatrous worship, all foolish ritual, all noisy music, needless
display and unnecessary expense caused by spreading the
festivities over many days were to be eliminated. Debendra-
nath himself was induced to set the example of celebrating
a nuptial ceremony in his own family according to this simple