DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 385
Sardar Bhopinder Singh Man (East Punjab : Sikh): In your case, marriage is more difficult than divorce.
Shri H. V. Kamath : There are always exceptions to a rule ; I suppose I am one of them.
If I may be allowed to quote a recent historic instance, der Feuhrer Herr Hitler in Germany, when he fought the election in 1932, one of his election slogans was, “a job for every German man and a husband for every German woman”. This slogan brought him, I understand, millions of women’s votes, when he promised a husband for every German woman. This proves to the hilt the principle that I have sought to place before you that marriage should be easy and divorce difficult. My honourable Friend Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava, the other day, while speaking on this subject retered to this and said that there are usages and customs in various parts of the country according to which divorce could be effected. There is even this simplest custom, I am told, according to which the man says ‘Talak’ three times and the wife is divorced. It may be that or some such custom ; I do not know; that is why I said, I am told. I personally think that divorce should not be easy. One of the modern States, Soviet Russia, at its inception in the early twenties of this century, made marriage as well as divorce equally easy. But, by experience they have learnt that family as a social unit has got to be preserved and strengthened even in a communist State and therefore now, though marriage is easy, divorce is next to impossible. I therefore think, however much I am inclined to agree with Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava that certain usages and customs must be given currency and must be kept alive, as regards divorce, I think that the procedure adopted must be very difficult, so that, the family as a social unit may be strengthend and preserved.
There is one more observation that I would like to make on this subject. There are instances, Sir, where due to certain causes, a dissolution of marriage may not be quite desirable or may not even be agreed to by one of the spouses : by the husband or by the wife. In such cases, where the wife agrees that the husband may marry another wife, herself also living in the same or another house. I do not see any reason why, in spite of the reasons mentioned here, permission should not be granted to either of the spouses to marry when the other consents, without dissolution of marriage. In Delhi, we are aware of one notability who has got several wives living at the same time, though perhaps in different houses.