Book Title: Jain Shwetambar Conference Herald 1910 Book 06
Author(s): Mohanlal Dalichand Desai
Publisher: Jain Shwetambar Conference
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1910)
The Institution of Early Marriage.
(13.
at after wile and careful observation constitute an eloquent argument against early reproduction.
Early marriage is responsible for a variety of evils besides those already divelt upon. It arrests development, shatters the constitution and enhances the perils and sufferings of chill-birth. It is economically unsound. It has accentuated the struggle for existence hy hampering young men hardly out of their teens with the burden and cares of family and has crushed all energy and ambition out of them in the process. It has thus acted as a drag on promising youths who, but for this, would have curveil ont honourable careers for themselves instead of being coulemnel to a life of drulgery for the sake of their fimily. Along with caste prejudice it has operated as one of the great obstacles to foreign travel, thereby placing the Indian Communities at a disadvantage, which in this age of keen competition is not to be lightly dismissed as a mere trifle. The high rate of infant mortality is directly traceable to its malign influence. The backwardness of female elucation must in a great measure be luid at its di or, while extravagant marriage expenditure may also hive something to do with it. In short : wide range of evils has its ultimate source in this degenerate custom
The Hindu Cunmuunity of Pengal has been awakened to a sense of the gravity of the evil. Public opinion is slowly but surely arraying itself against it, and alreuly, mureinents are afout to check the evil. One practical result of this awakening has been the establishment of the Hindu Marriage Reform League in alcutta under influential aus. pices. The immediate reform which the League has undertaken is the raising of the marriageable age of boys and girls. To this end it has l'esulveil to address itself to the task of educating public opinion on the subject by the dissemination of tracts and leaflets exposing the evils of early marriage. And as a preliminary step, it has elicited the views of a large number of leading men in the country as to the proper age for marriage. These views were summarized at a recent meeting of the League, when it was found that the varying ages suggested worked into an average of about 25 in the case of men and 16 in the case of women.
Has the Jaina Community nothing to learn from the beneficent activities of the Legue ? Our Community, I believe, is one of thg
