940 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
In these circumstances, I say, let us go slowly. Whoever wants to have liberal views, let him have his own way of life. Incidentally, I may say that sati is opposed to morality ; that was rightly put down. You say this is an enabling provision. Why don’t you say that a brother may marry a sister ? That would also be an enabling provision. Up to certain limits we can go ; beyond limits, we ought not to go. We should not allow incest. The question is whether the marriage should be beyond three degress or seven degrees. I have also read some books on genetics. New things are being discovered. They say there are three kinds of blood and that one does not agree with another. I have also read astrology in the old school. They say that before marriage you must consult the Rajju, Sarpa, and Gana agreement. This Gana seems to have been discovered by the westerners. The late Dr. Rabindranath Tagore was a great poet; but we recognised him as a great poet only after the westerners recognised him. Similarly we want somebody from the west to come and say that marriages should be only of a particular order and that the points in the old smritis are very good. I am a conservative in the sense that I do not want to leap before, I know that the other ground is steady and strong I would only urge upon this House to stick on to whatever has endured you for such a long time.
Before I finish, I would like to refer to one other aspect of the question, that is the Marumakkattayam law. They are all intellectuals ; practically in the Secretariat, every Secretary is a Menon, coming from Malabar. I am proud of them. They have got a different way of life. Ask them if they are more happy. Why don’t you impose this law on them also ? Take the Aliyasanthana Law. You may think that it is opposed to all nature, where a man visits his wife and the wife remains in her .house, where the children are maintained by the mother and her brother, not by himself. To you it may appear strange. Natural affection is different. Would I embrace my sister’s sons with more affection, then my own ? Well that is their law and we are allowing them to continue under this law. But, when my hon. friend Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava says that there are certain customs in the Punjab, you say that they should be thrown overboard because my hon. friend is not so vociferous. After all, it is a wrong principle of jurisprudence. Law does not go in advance of custom. It is a human institution. It is something like saying that grammer does not go in advance of language. A child learns to speak first and then comes in grammer. It is a wrong principle of jurisprudence to say that custom is a wrong