20 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
them to have judicial separation, if necessary and divorce. But I trust and hope that the distinguished ladies who are here and who have been
labouring for years in the cause of rights for women will preach and propagate the fact and the doctrine that divorce is a reserve fund not to be drawn upon for current expenses, that divorce should be the
ultimate resort for causes which are otherwise irremediable. Public opinion, personal influence, family persuasion, all these are there. You must remember that the quarrels between a husband and wife during
the day are generally closed up in the night and therefore, there is not much chance of perpetuating these quarrels. We should not make much of them. In America there is a State called Indianopolis, where the porter
cries “Indianopolis Station, Twenty minutes for divorce.” The divorce court is in the railway station itself. Any husband and wife having a quarrel in the train, could apply for divorce and get it before the train
departs. That should not be our position. Our divorce must be a kind of reserve fund like the jewellery on a woman’s person, always to be drawn upon under conditions of the greatest necessity and never to be
lightly utilised.
The question of adoption is a very difficult question, the Honourable
Law Minister has assimilated the Mitakashara practice to that of the Dayabhaga. I suppose Dayabhaga obtains in Bengal and Mitakashara in South India and in Bombay there is a law called Mayuka, according
to which amongst the non-Brahmins it is not necessary for the husband to give permission and the widow can adopt a child. I had read a judgment of the Privy Council some ten or twelve years ago. I want
that law to be copied in other parts, where such adoption is not permissible according to Mitakshara. After all why does a family adopt a boy ? To perpetuate the family. Is it not the right of the widow
to perpetuate the family as much as of the deceased husband? Is it only the exclusive right of the man who is deceased to perpetuate the family. If a boy could inherit the property, why should it not
be open to the mother to adopt the boy in her own right apart from the written or the registered permission of her husband either by a document or by a will. In English law oral wills are permissible;
whereas written wills require two signatures, oral wills require no such thing. After all, by oral wills properties worth lakhs and crores are alienated. “All to wife” on a newspaper bit is held to be a valid