936 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
be in consonance with the western system where as soon as the boy comes of age he marries and goes away. The girl also marries and goes away. The old people have to be looking at each other’s face ! Do we want that kind of animal life in our country ? I have no quarrel with the rest. It is a misfortune that the individualism is in excelsis. The husband and the wife are one unit and they ought to protect the old people. Our joint family system was brought about by our ancients many years ago and that is a natural unit and there the father, mother, the son and grandson all of them go together. I say that this is a happy unit where unemployment never existed. People who talk of socialism and communism pay lip sympathy and I say that this tendency is the germ of Socialism. The husband in a particular family works for the maintenance of his own children on the one side and for the maintenance of the older people on the other side.
In Madras after this marriage-divorce law was passed 38 applications were filed, (interruption) Boys alone can marry and no girl can marry a boy. Out of these 38 applications for divorce, 30 applications were filed only by the husbands.
The Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture (Shri Tirumala Rao) : Are they from the middle-class ?
Shri M. A. Ayyangar : Most of them were from middle-classes, most of them were educated men, unfortunately in western style. As I said, the majority of the petitions were from husbands. I think there was only one case where a woman was said to be sterile. I would bring that under this Code. One other case was the husband, an educated lawyer and he is employed in Bombay. He gets Rs. 100 as salary. The girl is employed somewhere as a Doctor getting Rs. 400. The girl wants the husband and the husband wants the wife. The only pull was that the wife wants the husband to come and live with her and the husband wants the wife to come and live with him. After marriage this trouble has been going on between the husaband and wife for three years. The husband said : “How long am I to be without her company” and the Court found that it was a case of desertion by the girl and they dissolved this marriage. I ask all my sisters here present and others outside, in a widow re-marriage after the husband’s death nobody knows whether the man has not touched the woman before her re-marriage. Even after this the widow-re-marriage has not progressed considerably. (Interruption). My friend says that what I say is a lecture. What my friend says is all truth. The Widow re-marriage Act was passed long ago but still it requires a lot of persuasion.