16 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
good thing because the child has to be grafted into another family and grafting should take place while the plant is young and not when the
plant has become old. But then, the conception itself has changed. Now we live in an age when it is much more happy to be bachelors and criticise others’ wives than to marry and beget children. Therefore, our
ideals have changed and therefore, the principle of child marriage may not be binding upon us. Each one is at liberty to live his or her own life according to her or his pleasure and there is no obligation imposed
by society and social conditions have changed. Under the circumstances we should not indeed be the victims of past tradition, past customs, past events.
But how shall we deal with the facts which exist at the present day: so many daughters and so many sisters are not merely vegetating but
they are rotting in their homes. While we praise our systems to others, we cannot shut from our own eyes the fact that our sisters and daughters and other relations are rotting in their own homes unable to get any
relief. Latterly I have suggested a love strike for our women. That is the only remedy which I have thought out and I have been able to think it out as a remedy directed against this custom. I read a book called
“The Impregnable Women” while I was in the Ahmednagar Fort. There was a war in England and all the women wanted to resist the war. How could they resist? The men are greedy. The men are pugnacious
and blood-thirsty. They want to fight. They want to measure the strength of the tiger and ape it them with the strength of the ape and tiger in others. Therefore, the women said : let us have a love strike. No young
maiden would speak to her lover; no wife would speak to her husband; no mother would speak to her son. The men were boycotted. There was no social life between men and women until the war about to be declared
was cancelled. They said they would not mix with these people. But, I will not push the matter further. I suggest that if in a village, or town, or mohalla, there is ill-treatment of a single woman, all our wives had
better have a club and go away from our houses and live there for
24 hours and very soon the recalcitrant husband will be brought to his senses. All the men will bring their moral influence to bear upon this man
and they will tell him: “What the hell are you doing? All our homes are