302 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [Sept., 1914. 



primitive " Animists " and low caste peoples, the practice of 

 early marriage is probably a lingering survival of the ancient 

 promiscuity. 



Child or premature marriages have their own advantages 

 and disadvantages. The validity or propriety of a marriage 

 is solely determined by the standards of society to which the 

 contracting parties belong. The extremely Brahman ideal of 

 marriage safeguards the female chastity ; and must necessarily 

 involve certain individual and social evils. In respect of the 

 individual woman, the physical effects of the early sexual inter- 

 course and premature maternity, which in most cases are the 

 natural sequence of immature marriage, are obvious to all ; 

 although theoretically immature marriage on the male side is 

 not a necessary compliment to that on the female, practically 

 it must be so to a large extent. The physical and mental 

 quality of a community, made up to an extent of the offspring 

 of immature parents, must necessarily deteriorate. The above 

 remark requires strong verification. Considering the unions 

 of the contracting parties to turn out happy, as they do in a 

 large number of instances, a too early consummation of the nup- 

 tial troth, the breaking down of constitution and the ushering 

 in of disease are the necessary results. The giving up of 

 studies on the part of the boy -husband, the birth of children, 

 the necessity of feeding too many mouths, poverty and depen- 

 dence, in fact a disorganized household leading to sin, in short a 

 wreck of two lives which might otherwise have attained to a 

 happy old age are also its other evils The customs relating to 

 the evils above referred to were denounced by Mr. Malabari in 

 1884 with his usual vigour and earnestness, which created a 

 lively and permanent interest in the subject, and this led to 

 the Act on the Age of Consent, by the Government of India, 

 under which sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife 

 under twelve years of age is an offence. About twenty years 

 ago Mr. Manomohan Ghose, a renowned lawyer of this pro- 

 vince (Bengal), put forward a proposal regarding the passing 

 of a general law for British India to the effect that no mar- 

 riage should be valid, if the contracting parties at the celebra- 

 tion of marriage were below twelve years. This proposal 

 was based on the main argument that there was nothing in 

 the Hindu scripture to make it obligatory upon a Hindu to 

 marry his daughter before she is twelve. 1 



Social Reform by Legislation.— The views above set forth 

 were taken advantage of by the enlightened State of Mysore 

 for the introduction of a regulation to prevent infant marriages 

 m its territory. The main provision of the Mysore Act is that 

 any person who causes the marriage of an infant girl or aids 



h*i! Pa P ers /elating to Infant Marriage and Enforced Widowhood in 

 India, pages 5-8. 



