THE UNTOUCHABLES AND THE PAX BRITANNICA 131
person forfeiture of rights or property, or may be held in any way to impair or affect any right of inheritance, by reason of his or her renouncing, or having been excluded from the communion of, any religion, or being deprived of caste, shall cease to be enforced as law in the Courts of the East India Company, and in the Courts established by Royal Charter within the said territories.”
The fourth piece of Social Legislation is the Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act XV of 1856. It enacts as follows:—
An Act to remove all legal obstacles to the marriage of Hindu Widows.
Preamble
WHEREAS, it is known that, by the law as administered in the Civil Courts reestablished in the territories in the possession and under the Government of the East Indian Company, Hindu widows with certain exceptions are held to be by reason of their having been once married, incapable of contracting a second valid marriage, and the offspring of such widows by any second marriage are held to be illegitimate and incapable of inheriting property ; and
WHEREAS, many Hindus believe that this imputed legal incapacity, although it is in accordance with a true interpretation of the precepts of their religion, and desire that the civil law administered by the Courts of Justice shall no longer prevent those Hindus who may be so minded from adopting a different custom, in accordance with the dictates of their own conscience ; and
WHEREAS, it is just to relieve all such Hindus from this legal incapacity of which they complain, and the removal of all legal obstacles to the marriage of Hindu widows will tend to the promotion of good morals and to the public welfare; it is enacted as follows:—
Marriage of Hindu widows legalized
- No marriage contracted between Hindus shall be invalid, and the issue of no such marriage shall be illegitimate, by reason of the woman having been previously married or betrothed to another person who was dead at the time of such marriage, any custom and any interpretation of Hindu law to the contrary notwithstanding.