438 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Babu Ramnarayan Singh : What people do they represent ?
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: They are most learned and orthodox men.
The Honourable Shri N. V. Gadgil: But enlightened orthodox.
Now, I come to the question of joint Hindu family. The house will no doubt agree with me that a progressive society ought to change
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with the change in times and that it should evolve appropriate institutions both of property and of laws. The time has now
come to assess dispassionately the merits of the joint family system, both as an institution to secure family happiness and as an institution of property. Even today, if somebody gives me convincing arguments about the benefits of the joint Hindu family, I am prepared to hear him, for I am not dogmatic— I feel that truth is the real thing, not prestige for ones own views.
Now, taking the first point, has the joint family system secured happiness for the individual members of the family ? I am not speaking what the daughters-in-law feel when they have to live in a big family. What I have seen and heard definitely goes to show that so far as happiness and harmony are concerned, this institution has ceased to be of any use or value. After all there is nothing new in this. If out of 32 crores of Hindus nearly 5 crores are already governed by Dayabhaga and if that system has worked well, at least one cannot say that it is absolutely bad and that we must even think of it. ( An honourable Member: It is absolutely new.) That it is new there is no doubt. But what is the society that we are visualising for the future ? It is of a patriarchal type ? What is exactly the nature of the society you want to reconstruct ? As I understand, that society is going to be one in which there will be equality of status and equality of opportunity because those are the two phrases we have incorporated in the Preamble of the Draft Constitution. I think with that Preamble the joint family property system is not consistent.
The real trouble seems to me to be—after having listened to the speeches of various members—what is being given to daughters. But as an institution of property the joint family system must go, because it concentrates wealth. People will ask me, “Well, has it or has it not done something good?” I at once agree that it has done some good, but so far as property aspect is concerned, so far as social credit aspect is concerned, other alternatives have already come into existence, such as co-operative societies and the joint stock companies. Therefore, there is no need of this institution so far as the creation of social credit is concerned. As a mechanism for business other