THE MARRIAGE TIE INDISSOLUBLE 211
one woman to wife, and indeed ordained that man and his one companion should form but one flesh \
A celebrated statesman of the last century( Burke), speaking on this subject from a political point of view, said that the Christian religion, by bringing marriage back to
its primitive and only legitimate state, had contributed more by that alone to the general peace, happiness, stability,
and civilization of the human race, than it would have been possible for it to do in any other department of divine providence.
The indissolubility of the marriage tie is also an essential principle which it seems to me is not less firmly established amongst the Hindus than that which limits this important act to the legal union of one man with one woman. A
Hindu can only put away his legitimate wife for one cause, and that is adultery. If this rule is violated, it is only among the most degraded of the lower castes. A marriage can also be annulled if it has been contracted in violation of the prohibitory degrees which are laid down by custom, and which of themselves are sufficient to nullify the union.
I have never yet heard of a divorce being permitted on account of incompatibility of temper, nor have I ever heard of a man being allowed to put away his wife, however vicious she might be, simply in order to marry another woman. Hindus, as I shall presently show, put too serious
a value on this solemn contract to allow it to be thus degraded to a state which would be nothing more or less than concubinage. A Hindu, and especially a Brahmin, would hardly be inclined to repudiate his wife even for adultery, unless her guilt were very notorious. As a general rule, when the wife of a Brahmin gives occasion, by injudicious behaviour, for remarks of a kind damaging to her character, her friends and relatives do their utmost to excuse her conduct and to hush up all scandal about her, so as to avoid the necessity of such an extreme measure as a divorce, the disgrace of which would reflect on the whole caste.
I will now give a detailed account of the principal ceremonies which take place both before and at the time of a wedding.
1
Genesis ii. 24.