THE PROPOSED REFORM IN HINDOO MARRIAGES. T HE very able correspondent
of the Times who has been discussing the Hindoo marriage system in its columns, has at last come forward with his own proposal for remedying its hardships. He suggests a most subtle scheme, and one which will instantly commend itself to English feeling, and, indeed, to the general feeling of civilised communities. But we think we can show that it is an excessively dangerous one, too dangerous to be tried except for peremptory moral reasons, and. that it is out- side the rights which modern opinion" usually concedes to Legislatures. The correspondent, to begin with, concedes at once that no statute prohibiting child-marriage can be or ought to be passed by the Legislative Council. The practice, directly enjoined as it is by the later Sha,sters, is too closely interwoven with religious feeling, as well as with Hindoo social life, to be readily abandoned ; and its prohibition would be regarded by the people as an oppres- sion of the gravest kind. It would, we may add, be futile, for the law would, not be obeyed ; and you cannot put fifty millions of families into prison, or fine every household in so vast and scattered a community. It is, however, quite possible to raise the legal age of cohabitation to twelve, for although millions of fathers will be annoyed by the change, the duty of watchfulness during the period between ten and twelve being an irksome one, they will be only annoyed, and will concede in their own minds that the present age of consent has been fixed too low. There is nothing in the regulation to irritate the priesthood, and it will please the mothers, who on all social questions are in India the guardians of con- servatism. That is a genuine reform, which could be carried, and so, if needful, could the abolition of the suit for the restoration of conjugal rights, the law never being invoked except in cases of extreme dislike, in which the Courts had much better abstain from interference. Hindoo society is the best knit in the world, and can settle ordinary cases of that sort without our rather ignorant meddling. There is, be it remembered, a real though small religious difficulty in this matter, as a childless Hindoo is a Hindoo who has lost, in his own mind, the most important of all "means of grace," the certainty that the right person will perform the right ceremoniala in the right manner over his remains. Hindooism, how- ever, though essentially monogamous, allows a second wife to the childless, and could, we imagine, readily allow one to the deserted husband. Those two reforms could be carried, and would soothe away many existing objections to the Hindoo system ; but theeorrespondent of the Times wishes to take one long step further. He proposes to encourage all who abandon early marriage for their children, and all widows who remarry, by making it an offence, a legal offence, for the caste or the priest- hood to excommunicate them. The effect of this would be that child-marriage would still be lawful, but that, as scepticism spread, whether from education or any other cause, a number of families, increasing every year, would adopt the European method, and thus gradually create among the cultivated a new custom and a new habit of thought, to be followed ultimately by a, new method of social life. That looks reasonable and desirable, and is so, if it can be accomplished without laws ; but if the change demands a law, and a penal law, it would involve this very grave risk. Every Hindoo priest, and, indeed, every sincere Hindoo, would see at once that the whole system of caste as a social institution was placed in imminent danger. That system depends absolutely upon the power, possessed alike by the priesthood and the caste itself, of excommunicating the offender,—that is, of sub- jecting him to a boycotting less violent, indeed, than that of Ireland, as the excommunicated man is seldom per- sonally molested, but far more morally terrible, because it includes his wife, his children, and his dearest friends, who shrink from him as completely as the priesthood itself does. The Hindoo decreed out of caste "is in no danger as regards either person or property ; but he is a leper, without kinsman or wife or friend, with no one to visit, no one to cook for him, no one to shave him, no one to give him water, no one to perform his funeral ceremonies, no one, in fact, to smooth life in any one way. Without this sanction, the caste law, which is always burdensome and sometimes oppressive, would be incessantly broken, would, in fact, in course of time become obsolete, every second family having, for one reason or another, broken through it. That would be the end of the Hindoo system of society, and the people, if they heard of the proposed law, would believe that the end would come speedily. They, would see, being as quick-witted on such points as Parisians, that if the Government could prevent ecclesiastical punishment for one reason, it could for another ; and that it would use its power, is with most Hindoos an immovable pre-conception. The average Anglo-Indian detests caste, as an institution always in his way, and his rather thoughtless expression of his hatred has begotten in the Indian mind an idea that the Govern- ment detests it too, which is not true. The whole com- munity would therefore imagine that caste itself was threatened ; the priesthood, whose dignity and power would be alike endangered, would diligently fan the flame ; and we might be, we fear should be, face to face with an insurrection to which the Mutiny would be trivial. The Government itself might be put out of caste, and the whole machine suddenly stop, like the works of a frozen watch. That danger is too great to run. If we ought to run it, then we ought to prohibit child-marriage abso- lutely, and this the proposer of the scheme has himself declined to do.
Besides, is it certain that, in taking such a step, we should not be directly persecuting a creed ? Rome would say so loudly, we fancy, if we made it penal for a priest to excommunicate an offender within her own communion ; and Scotland would say it more loudly still, if the Churches were fined for expelling a communicant. Just imagine a Presbytery sent to prison for informing a Church member that, until he reformed his ways, he was outside the pale ! All the soldiers in Scotland could not keep the prison-gates tarred for twenty-four hours : and the author of this scheme goes much further than that. He specially instances the case of a married widow refused entrance to a temple, and wants that refusal made an offence, and the widow admitted by a kind of legal force ; but has he even thought out the consequences ? In many cases, the temple itself and all its priesthood would be desecrated; while in all cases those who joined in the widow's worship, would become, until purified, outcasts like herself. Has any Government, however superior, a right so to interfere in that way with any creed that it deems worthy of toleration ? No doubt we have interfered more than once or twice in India with the strong hand ; but then, it has always been to prohibit practices condemned by the instinctive conscience of all humanity. We made suttee murder, and the massacre of children at Saugor infanti- cide, and prevented the self-torture called "swinging,". by fining the priests ; but in none of those cases were- ecclesiastical rights invaded. No. woman was excom- municated because she did not burn herself on her husband's pyre, or drown her child as an offering to the sea ; and no priest ever enjoined either sacrifice, except in the former case as a counsel of perfection. We question if compulsion ever was used on the suttee, though she was often drugged, or, if it were used, it was social compulsion, and not ecclesiastical. Apart from the political danger, it is going very far to make the internal discipline of the Hindoo Church penal, and to force for an excommunicated Hindoo admission to the altar. If it were criminal for a Hindoo widow to remain un- married, or for a Hindoo father to betroth his baby- daughter, there would be reason in the proposal ; but that is not alleged. What we are seeking is only an improvement in the marriage system of Hindoos ; and to break up the Hindoo ecclesiastical system for that purpose, while we legalise and protect Mussulman polygamy, seems to us doubtful justice. If a widow who remarries, or a father who keeps his daughter unbetrothed, needs legal protection from external violence, let them have it in the fullest measure—the case, we believe, occurs, the widow forfeiting property she ought to keep—but to prohibit ecclesiastical pressure, or ecclesiastical protection of the temples against excommunicants, is outside the legitimate function of any Government. It would be as hard to abolish Hindooism as to prohibit excommunication, and not a great deal more just. An improvement of that kind —if it be an improvement, and for our part we believe caste to be the antiseptic of Hindoo society—must come from within when the time is ripe, not be forced upon a people from outside. We should not feel very benevolent, or very civilised either, if millions of Hindoos, declaring that they could no longer protect their Hindoo purity, elected to become Mahommedans,—and that has happened in India, though on a smaller scale, before now.
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