1286 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
But if she meant this that if there is a brother, who has got two or three children and a wife and he has a brother who is about to die, and he also has got two or three children and his wife, that they are made to live together it would create dificulties and trouble would arise. If she wants to know about that, I am coming to that point also. I confess it and everybody in our society would confess it that nobody resorts to bigamy willingly and that the woman is also helpless, because she loves her children and she cannot leave the two or three orphans, for where could they find shelter. She cannot say that she wants to remarry and the other members of the household also cannot leave the children, then the question arises whether she should take her children with her. But this is a custom in our society and I think, you may enact any law but you cannot change it. This is not a matter of joke. They themselves could change it but you cannot change it today.
There is another custom in our society. It is their belief that even the most foolish man belonging to a particular family would not allow his children to go to another family, and if a man tries to do so very severe punishment has been prescribed for him in our community. Even if you say that our community is backward and it is very difficult to improve it, the result of such an action among us is still murder. If you want that the number of murders and assassinations should increase in our society, the Punjab is already notorious for murders and assassinations, for many people are hanged there for such murders etc.—if you want to increase their number you are at liberty to impose any rules and regulations on them immediately. But if you want to decrease the number of murders and assassinations and the sentences of death, I would request you to accept the amendment of Shri Bhatt or of Shri Bhargava.
So I was saying that either a woman, if she loves her children, will be forced to live as a widow for the rest of her life, as has never been done in her community before, or, if she does not love her children, she might take them stealthily to some other place at night and if she meets some daring person who says that he would see how others could harm him the result would be that either she would become a widow again or her husband would be hanged. But, in any case, she would not remain a fortunate wife, though this is a big and a terrifying thing, but it is a fact.
Then there is the question of sagotra marriage. How many men and women live in the cities ? I want to state my own reactions