३४८ महात्मा फुले : समग्र वाङ्मय Opinion from Jotteerao Govindrao Phulay on Note No. I, by Mr. B. M. Malabari on Infant Marriage in India I concur with Mr. B. M. Malabari's laudable undertaking, and hope that something may be done by our enlightened Government to alleviate the miserable state of the deluded people of this country. Although Mr. B. M. Malabari is not pressed under the immediate burden of our customs and manners, invented by Aryan Shastra makers, he treated the subject so remarkably well that the Shudrati-Ati-Shudras and Brahmin widows will thank him future undoubtedly. I also now beg to add a few remarks on the middle and lower orders, the downtrodden aborigines of this country. In the course of marriage if any slight dispute takes place between the parties, the poor girl has to suffer all her life-time. After the marriage is over, should a defect in her family happen to come to the notice of the boy's father, the innocent girl is considered an outcaste. If the boy is younger than the girl, she is not well fed, clothed and cared for properly, nay, she is not allowed to remain with her rich parents. If her father-in-law be ignorant and poor, the girl, not being fed well, is stunted in her growth. In short she is more heavily loaded with work for days and nights than a American slaves. Thus she is so unbearably tyrannized that she is obliged to put an end to her life by committing suicide; and the crime is very often hushed up by bribing the village Patel, Coolkerni (the quarrel-monger) and Policemen. Many poor parents on the bridgroom's side are thus, by incurring debts for marriages, ruined on accounts of the premature deaths of their daughters-in-law, Besides the husband boy, on coming to his proper sences, does not like his wife and marries one of his own liking. Being thus accustomed, he is induced to marry two, three, or four wives at a time in succession, and thus renders his whole family discontented, abusive and quarrelsome. These ignorant wives are not only obliged to poison each other, but sometimes their own husband. Now the enlightoned Hindu of Bengal has made excellent suggestions
