The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c7.s7.20

c7.s7.20

In recent years some educated ladies have begun to advocate the legal recognition of divorce in Hindu community. This demand is to a large extent a natural outcome of the present Hindu law of marriage, which is very unfair to the fair sex. Man is permitted practically to divorce his first wife by contracting a fresh marriage. He can even evade his legal responsibility of maintaining the discarded wife under the plea that she refuses to stay with him. How can a self-respecting woman stay with a husband, who has transferred all his affection to a new wife and who will at best treat her only as an unpaid and unwanted maid-servant? The number of young women, who have been in this way deserted by their husbands merely out of frivolity or whimsicality, is not small. The deserted wives cannot remarry, for neither law nor religion consents to sever their nominal marital tie with their heartless husbands. Some of them change their religion in order to contract a new legal marriage.