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JAINA GAZETTE.
a reasonable supposition, it will still leave over a lac and a half males or about 28 p. c. of the total number of males below 15 who fail to get a wife. This shows how the smallness of the number of women is working at the destruction of the Jaina community.
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Those who will attempt a solution of this will have to enquire into the causes of this. They should remember that the number of children born is not disproportionate-the female children under 5 are actually more in number than the male children. It is between the ages of 10 and 20 when most of the children are married and unfortunately young girls become mothers, and in this we find the greatest loss in female population. Of this age, there are 128,105 males and 105,374 females, or a difference of 22,731, which is more than half the total difference. This shows that although nature produces more females than males, we kill them by our bad treatment and bad social customs. The census reports give the same causes. Bad treatment, overwork, unhealthy Pardah, early motherhood are among the many Such customs have to be fought against.
causes.
Early marriage is not only detrimental to the health of the females, but is a direct cause of the weakening of the population and of unhealthy children. This is a point which of all others cannot be ingored and which will have to be fought out most strongly.
of
But this cannot wholly remove the difficulty when one out every four women you meet is a widow. The stopping of child-marriages will improve matters much, but in the interest of the existence of the community, widow-remarriage shall have to be allowed. The 11,304 widows below 25 should at least extract pity from the leaders. The 1,259 widows below 15 should make them weep and stir them to action. It is hoped that they will not fight shy of this question.
Prohibition of marriages of old men is also an important reform that shall have to be introduced. Though this will not greatly influence the number, yet we we would be spared such ridiculous scenes as that of an old man of 70 marrying a girl of 10 and dying only two months later. Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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