ఇంగ్లీషు జర్నలిజంలో తొలి తెలుగు వెలుగు
171
అనుబంధం-12
Extract from “Letters on Hindu Marriages"
I
Three Shastries and one Charriar to wit, Venkannah Shastry, Runganada Shastry, Anantha Rama Shastry and the "Venerable Spiritual Head Sreemut Sankara Charriar" comprising four long heads on the whole, (with very long names, by the way) are "cudgelling their brains" about, two on the pro side and two on the con, with regard to the question, as they are pleased to call it, of “Hindu Infantine Marriages”, and the battle ground chosen by the contending parties in the columns of our contemporary of the Times. It has been well said that it is a very difficult matter to arrive at a very satisfactory decision when "doctors disagree", and as in the present case the gentlemen pitted against each other are men very learned in the law indeed, for more learned than we can ever lay claim to, even if we lived to the age of the oldest postdiluvian patriarch, we are afraid that our interference in this discussion on a point of Hindu Social Science will only earn for us a reputation similar to that of the "young conceited talking spark”, the traveller who would hold that the Chameleon was blue (or some such colour) and no other. Remembering moreover that a man's claretbutt' is liable to be disagreeably tapped' by an uncalled for meddling in the quarrels of others, it is with a very tender regard for our own, delicately formed organ of smell that we venture this morning to enter the arena of contention, which rash act of course necessarily compels us to take one side or the other, and while we shall be welcomed by the one as a friend and ally, by the other party we shall, no doubt, be considered a gratuitous intruder and assailed accordingly. But as we have it on the authority of a great French Philosopher it is a folly to wish for studying the world like a simple spectator", we have made up our mind to run the risk of a broken and bloody nose, (only metaphorically of course) and so enter the lists in behalf of the Shastries on the con side of the question and against the learned and energetic Shastries on the pro side.
The question then is this, are Hindu Females to continue to be given in marriage while they are yet mere children, in accordance with ancient usage, or are Hindus, in accordance with the spirit or more enlightened days, to abolish this custom and follow the more convenient and reason-
