San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-11-05

Proposed Reforms in Hindoo Mar
riage.
From the New York Commercial Adver-
tiSer.
The Ep glisb Government has sue
ceeded in effectipg several reforms
relating to the family life and the
religious life of its Hindoo subjects.
daughter of female children has al
most entirely ceased. The burning
or widows alive on the funeral pyres
of their hus stands has been practical
ly abolished. though now and then,
in some out of-the-way district, a
case is recorded. The annual masa-
ere of children to the spirits of the
sea, has been so completely sup
pressed that the Hindoos are in
Inclined to claim that no such custom
ever ruled. The work accomplished
in these directions it is now proposed
to push further by the passage of
three laws regulating Hindoo mar
riages. The first of these raises from
10 to II the legal age of cohabitation;
the second abolishes the suit for the
restoration of conjugal rights; the
third makes it a legal offense for the
caste or priesthood 10 excommunicate
parents who abandon early marriage
for their children, or widows who
remarry.
The London Spectator criticise these
proposals very sensibly in the light of
HindOo public opinion. The first pre-
posal, 1t believes, would be accepted
by Hindoo parents, though fathers
would be annoyed by the duty of
watchfulness over their daughters
during the two added years. The
second, relating to legal proceedings,
would even more easily commend it.
self. Hindooism allows a second wife
to man who is childless, and might
readily allow it to man who has been
deserted. If a wife can not be forced
to return to her husband by Hindoo
public opinion, which makes widow
an outcast, it is the extreme of cruelty
that the English law should interfere
on the husbands behalf. The third
proposal, however, making it a pen
al offence to eXcommunicate those
who abandon Hindoo customs, the
Spectator believes, would put all Iu-
dia in such ferment of discomfort
that "the Government itself might be
chine suddenly stop like the work of
a frozen watch"
whether or not the attempted en-
forcement of this third proposal would
result in the overthrow of the Gov
eminent, it certainly could have no
other effect than to injure the cause
lt would serve The reforms which
the English Government has effected
nave dealt with other acts, and not
with religious opinions. The excom-
mun1cation of parents who abandon
child marriage, or of widows who re-
marry, involves no overt act of vio-
lence. 1t simply makes Its victims
Wlthout caste, without family, with
out friends. Such treatment is vastly
worse than any act of violence, but it
Is absolutely beyond the power of the
Government to deal with it. The life
and property of these victims may be
as thoroughly protected as those of
the carpet-baggers in Carolina or rack
renting landlords of Ireland, but no
Government on earth could compel
the Hindoo people to regard them as
anything but outcasts.
The abandonment of child marriage
and the remarriage of widows both
strike at signal idea upon which
the whole Hindoo social system rests
LIZ is the idea that woman is created
only for her husband, and that she
should have no other life outside of
his life. For this reason she is given
TO hlm in infancy and is made an out
east If she permits herself to survive
MIN. This idea and the fearful
wrongs which spring from it are not
10 De extirpated by law. The enIght-
eminent of centuries will be required
TO remove it, for it has required the
equipment of centuries among Euro
peans to remove kindred conceptions
of woman's place in society.