420 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
say, there is no necessity for any legislation for it. It has automatically died out: the custom has fallen into disuse. It may be argued that there are some strata of society where it prevails. There also I want to sound a note of warning. You cannot stop it by force or compulsion. You have got to create public opinion and when these unfortunate breathren of ours come to realise the evils of this system they will discard it. If, on the other hand, without bringing up their standard, without creating a consciousness in them by education and public opinion you try to thrust your legislation down their throats, I would request you to realise the effect that it will have on them. Just as my honourable sister was telling us they will say : This is our society ; it is such a cast-iron mould and they would not allow us to have another wife. We will go to another form of society, embrace another religion where this is permissible. Any sociologist, any man interested in social reform will have to pay heed to that as well. The fear is not altogether an unfounded one. Anyway I feel that if you codified the Hindu law, all that should have been done was to prescribe the essentials of marriage, the requirements on the part of the contracting parties, their ages, their mental and physical capacity, prohibited degrees of relationship and things like that. Those who believe in social ceremonies and functions, may go through the form of ceremonial marriage but the essentials of marriage should not be allowed to vary between civil marriage and sacramental marriage. If there is a demand in the country for inter-caste marriages I will not stand in its way. If people want to marry outside their castes, let them by all means invoke the provisions of the Civil Marriage Act of 1874. There is nothing at present to stand in the way of people who are anxious to marry outside their castes. If there are bona fide attachments among intercaste boys and girls, it is not that we want to stop or prevent them. They have got the facilities open to them even under the existing law, the law to which I referred earlier. You can change that law. You can repeal or modify certain provisions so that people marrying under that Act will have their children governed not by the Indian Succession Act as at present but by the Hindu Law. I have no objection to that but I fail to understand why in a Hindu Code side by side with the sacramental marriage you are allowing civil marriage. This must be completely taken out of the Code which should have nothing to do with it. There may be a separate civil marriage law for all.
Sir, I personally feel that if you insist on having the question of divorce in it, then you will have to face the music of it everywhere