Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/166

 is a custom against which common-sense, and all the best instincts of our nature write, as in the case of slavery, the verdict  delenda est But with all that, it does not, taking the country as a whole, produce so much evil as might be theoretically inferred. It is bad enough doubtless, but it is not that gigantic cancer at the heart's core of society, that tremendous and cruel evil, the eradication of which is essential as the first step to national regeneration, that the casual reader unacquainted with the intricacies of social life in the East, might well conceive it to be from your eloquent and earnest denunciations.

But besides this I have another difficulty. I must divide widows into titular or virgin widows, and real widows. As to the former I have satisfied myself by a careful study of all the authentic and authoritative texts produced on both sides, that there is nothing in the Shastras to prevent their re- marriage ; and there being positively no good that can be even alleged as resulting from enforcing their continued widowhood, while very grave evils unquestionably flow there- from, I have no hesitation in earnestly pressing and entreating every good Hindu, who loves his family, his fellows or his country, to combine to make re- marriages in such cases customary and thus, as it were, legislate for themselves on this matter.

For the re-marriage of fully married or real widows, I cannot say as much. I entertain no doubt that according to the Shastras, the re-marriage of such involved a loss of caste. I regret that this should be so, but I believe it to be the case, and being so, I could press no Hindu brother, who con- scientiously accepts these ancient writings, not merely as the teachings of eminently pious men (and therefore necessarily imperfect, suited only to the time in which they were written and open to correction in the light of a more advanced civilization), but as the immutable commands of the Almighty — I could, I say, ask no such Hindu to do violence to his conscience by transgressing what he believes to be the laws of God, even were the evils resulting from this enforced widowhood tenfold what they are.