The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c17.s3.16

c17.s3.16

As shown already by us in the course of the preceding chapters, there were no doubt some extenuating and often sufficient causes for the spread of many of the above unfortunate tendencies, customs and institutions. But we must now realise that circumstances have radically changed and customs and institutions must follow suit. In a society living in an ascetic atmosphere, it may have been thought desirable to prohibit widow remarriage; in the modern age of morbid talkies and four anna novels, to continue to insist upon that prohibition would be suicidical. Polygamy may have had some justification when a son was genuinely believed to be necessary for spiritual salvation; in a society which no longer subscribes to that belief, it becomes an odious institution. In an age when children were married very young and were accustomed to obey the parents instinctively, no one thought of questioning their sole authority to arrange their wards’ marriages; in the new epoch when marriages are taking place at an advanced age and when every adult has begun to claim absolute independence as his birth right, it would be no longer justifiable for guardians to excercise the same powers as before. Hindu society will have to remove a number of cobwebs in its ancient house and change and even revolutionise some of its customs and institutions in order to accord the proper place which justly belongs to women.