Book Title: Jain Philosophy
Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Agamoday Samiti

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Page 311
________________ 282 among us. There seems to be a dread of enlarging. the home circle by bringing into it the wife of the brother, with you. Perhaps you are afraid of the mother-in-law, as I have heard. With us it is different. The home of the father of the son who marries. the daughter of a different family, is, from that moment, the home of the daughter who is now the wife and she loves not her husband only, but her motherin-law, her father-in-law her brother-in-law-in fact, all the members of the family into which she is adopted or brought, and her rights and privileges are equally sacred and as inviolable in the family, as the son's whose wife she is. In your country, if the husband, dies leaving the wife a widow, it is often the case, if not always, if my impression is right, that she is left to provide for herself unless the estate of her husband is left to her and is sufficient. Perhaps, it is this which necessitates renarriage and the establishment of new ties of the same nature in a different direction and with a new mother-in-law who may be appreciated in the sa ine way, so that now she is related by marriage to two families and is in our conception, a inember of neither. You will, therefore, ask me, what is the difference in my country ? It is this: the daughter-in-law becomes a member bona fide, not legally; per se not incidentally, of the family into which she marries. If she is left a widow she does uot need to remarry in order to obtain the comforts. and the protections of home, but the home in which Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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