932 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
to tell and advise people outside that what they are following is wrong and that they should change their method ? I am not basing my argument on the ground that this Parliament is not entitled to do that, though my personal view is that this Parliament cannot enact legislation in the way it was doing during the British days. We are now guided by a written Constitution. My own personal impression is that the personal matters of an individual, and the practice by which he is governed so far as his marital relationship is concerned are governed by his fundamental rights and should not be touched by anybody. So long as the practice which I follow and the procedure I adopt in regard to marriage is not opposed to public morality and is not obnoxious, or indecent, it is my own business and nobody has any right to interfere with it. Therefore, we have to go slow in this matter.
So far as the progressive elements are concerned, we have made a number of enactments now. The Hindu Widow Remarriage Acts are there. My hon. friend referred to the Child Marriage Restraint Act. True, it has put down child marriages. But it has put down marriages also. Everywhere a new problem has arisen : there are armies of unmarried girls today, there will be no dearth of girls if only you want to enlist them in the army as nurses or doctors. This is a new problem that you have created—have you heard of it before ? Our friends, including Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava, cried hoarse, that by early marriage girls became widows. But is there any guarantee that a man will continue to live, the moment he marries a girl of fifteen. I do not think God in his wisdom has arranged that a man marrying a girl of fifteen will live long, and that a man marrying a girl less than fifteen would die early. Therefore nobody can stand guarantee on this matter. It is a question of balancing the convenience.
We have not heard of any marriage except in the human kingdom. Animals don’t marry ; there is no law of divorce among them ; they don’t have family life. It is only with respect to human beings that the institution of marriage is prescribed as one of the purusharthas with a view to avoid inconvenience. As the Maharshi said, of the four purusharthas, the three, that is Moksha, the other word dharma, maintenance of society, and artha, politics or economics, depend upon a happy family life. This is one thing on which all our ancients laid emphasis, whereas in the Western society individualism has been all along in excelsis. Here family is the unit of our society. I do not mean to say that any human institution is so perfect as to obviate