530 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
system of divorce. Then allegations in Court would be too serious to be thought of. Proceedings in Court in such cases are sordid in the extreme and it would be impossible for us, in the present state of our society, to allow the husband and wife to rush to Court.
Then there is another aspect. There are among tribal and other people a kind of customary divorce which involves very simple formalities. They get divorced very cheaply and expeditiously but if they are forced to go to Court it will mean that they could not do it for financial and other reasons and divorce, which they can get easily according to their own custom, will be forbidden to them. You want to complicate matters when you want to achieve uniformity. The law may be the theoretically uniform but it will work hard against the poorer people. In the name of easy divorce people will rush to Court when time would have effected a reconciliation; domestic happiness will be shattered and the parties and society will then repent for ever. To impose this artificial law upon the simple ways of living of these poor people would be very hard; it will make things costly; every decree would have to be supported by a decision of the High Court and it would be a costly affair. Instead of all this I submit the parties should be left to themselves. To introduce divorce in this way, making the same for all classes of people in different stages of civilisation and training would be highly mischievous. It is customary for people here to quote Sanskrit slokas to support or strengthen their arguments. I will also attempt one.
“ Aja juddhe, krishin sradhhe, prabhate megharambarah, Dampati kalahaschaiba, babharambhe laghukriah.”
When two goats fight, they stand on their hind legs and a severe impact of the horns seems imminent, but the actual clash is very slight; when a million rishis meet for a sradh with great ceremony, only a minute quantity of food suffices the thunder clap of the morning cloud looks menacing, but it ends in no heavy rain; and marital quarrels, though seriously and menacingly begun, end in nothing serious.
In Domestic quarrels natural and social forces should be allowed to work to bring about reconciliation.
Instead of divorce you should give them time. The question of divorce is not all one way traffic. It has got to be considered from every point of view. The Honourable the Law Minister advanced a very novel argument that as 90 per cent of the people are sudras and these 90 per cent, of the people practise divorce, it is just meet and proper that the law of the majority should be made also applicable