It appears that the Hindoo population of India had some
reason for its fear that the British Government would prohibit child-marriage, or at least render it illegal. Such a proposal was actually brought before the Supreme Council, and all local Governments were ordered to report upon it. This got abroad, and the consequence was an explosion of opinion from all Hindoos, except the few who have accepted Western ideas, in favour of their ancient system. The local Governments all re- ported against the innovation, and Lord Dufferin, seeing their unanimity and the excitement of the people, last week an- nounced publicly that the Government, though sympathising with the reformers, would not interfere by legislation with the customs of the Hindoo people. This decision will be pronounced weak in many quarters; but the reformers have, we conceive, been a little blinded by the ease with which suttee, female infanti- cide, and self-immolation have been suppressed by law. Those were crimes condemned by the universal human conscience, and were, moreover, not intertwined with the social system. Suttee was a luxury of the rich, or at least of the most respectable ; infanticide was a practice confined to certain classes and tribes; and the self-immolators were a few powerless fanatics. Child. betrothal is not a crime, unless any betrothal without conscious choice is a crime; and Hindoo society rests upon it as a base. If it is changed, so must the marriage ceremony be, and the dress of the people, and the whole condition of widows, which, as able rundits allow, has for its social base the necessity of making it the wife's interest to keep alive the husband whom she did not choose. It is far better to wait for a change of opinion, even if the idea of the Vedantists that this is imminent should prove inaccurate.
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