1154 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Shri Brajeshwar Prasad : I am not expressing my views on the marriage Chapter. I am only visualising certain objections that may be raised with regard to my suggeston that the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children should be obliterated.
Shri T. Hussain (Bihar) : For the sake of information, may I know if my hon. friend is against legal marriage or not ?
Shri Brajeshwar Prasad : If I get an opportunity to speak on the marriage clauses, I am prepared to make the distinction clear. I do not think that the institution of marriage will be weakened if the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children is obliterated. For, what is the basis of marriage ? Why is the institution of marriage surviving ? It is old age—psychlogical enfeeblement of the mind and heart—which is responsible for the survival of the institution of marriage. It is not for the pleasures of sex ; it is not for the procreation of children that the institution of marriage exists in society. For, both these objectives can be achieved outside the bonds of matrimony. I am opposed to illegitimacy because it is an important cause of abortion, destitution, prostitution, delinquency, further illegitimacy, premature birth, still-birth, crimes, infanticide, veneral disease and cruelty to women and children.
I am not prepared to give my moral support to an article which tends to perpetuate the gravest crime that is done in our society.
- Shri B. Das (Orissa) : At the outset I wish to congratulate Dr. Ambedkar on behalf of myself and all those reformists who are Members of this House and reformists outside for the bold step he has taken to codify the Hindu Law. He has shown great forbearance. He has been characterised as the Manu of our age. But he has been following the precepts of Buddha and showing greater forbearance in agreeing that only the Chapters relating to marriage and divorce be taken for the time being. I support the marriage and divorce clauses of this Code.
Great speeches have been made on the floor of the House. On the side of the Bill my hon. Friend Shri Gadgil made an excellent speech ; so also Pandit Kunzru. On the opposite side the speeches that have to be taken notice of are the ones of Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Sardar Man and my young friend Pandit Govind Malaviya.
Dr. Mookerjee perhaps forgot the fact that the intermediate stage in the line of reformists from Buddha to Gandhiji was held by great
P.D., Vol. XV, Part II, 20th September 1951, pp. 2935-37.