Page:The Autobiography of Maharshi Devendranath Tagore.djvu/79

 DEVENDRANATH TAGORE 31

tion to legalise Brahma marriages; but on further consideration they abandoned the attempt as useless, being advised that marriages solemnised in accordance with the form of the Adi Brâhma-Samaj were quite as valid as marriages performed under a legislative enactment.

When, therefore, at the instance of Keshab Chandra Sen, Government wanted to pass a marriage law applicable to the whole of the Brâhma community, requiring parties desirous to marry to appear before a registrar of Brâhma marriages and get their marriage registered by him, the members of the Adi Samaj, deeming themselves as much Hindu as the rest of the community, applied to Government for exemption from the proposed Act. Owing to their strenuous opposition, the Marriage Act of 1872 was passed, in its present form, for the benefit of those who did not profess any recognised form of religion. The passing of the Marriage Act of 1872 was hailed as a signal triumph by Keshab and his party, but the members of the Adi Samaj did not share in this feeling, inasmuch as they were unaffected by its provisions. At the present day, all sections of the Brâhma-Samaj, with the exception of the Adi Samaj, avail themselves of the Act by getting their marriages registered, after making the negative declaration as to religion required by the Act; while the Adi Samaj follows a ritual of its own, without registration. My father was strongly opposed to registration as