Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/602

Rh believe that he would espouse the cause of the Kulin girls and would try his best to mitigate their sufferings. With this hope, she urgently requested him to see if he could do anything for them also. Vidyasagar promised to her that he would leave no stone unturned to uproot this evil practice from Hindu Society.

He applied himself heart and soul to the cause, and on the 37th December 1855, he submitted to Government a petition subscribed by 25,000 persons, among whom there were Maharaja Mahatap Chand Bahadur of Burdwan and a number of influential and leading personages, praying for a legislation for the prevention of the practice of polygamy among the Hindus. We have not space to quote at length the long petition. We will, therefore, content ourselves with giving space to only a small portion of it:— "The Coolins marry solely for money and with no intention to fulfil any of the duties which marriage involves. The women who are thus nominally married without the hope of ever enjoying the happiness which marriage is calculated to confer particularly on them, either pine away for want of objects on which to place the affections which spontaneously arise in the heart or are betrayed by the violence of their passions and their defective education into immorality.