[2] Sir Monier-Williams--_Modern India and the Indians_, page 353. [3] Oman--_The Great Indian Epics_. [4] E. Sylvie Pankhurst. [5] E. Sylvie Pankhurst--_The Suffragette_, page 451. [6] E. Sylvie Pankhurst--_The Suffragette_, page 413. [7] Sir Edwin Arnold--_India Revisited_, page 211. [8] Margaret E. Cousins--_The Awakening of Asian Womanhood_, page 114. [9] The Indian National Congress is the largest representative body of the Indian nation, with its ramifications spread throughout the country consisting of thousands of branches. Its meetings are held annually in different parts of the country. [10] _Awakening of Asian Womanhood_, page 9. [11] Sir Monier-Williams--_Modern India and the Indians_, page 54. [12] Sir Monier-Williams--_Modern India and the Indians_, page 318. CHAPTER II THE HINDU IDEAL OF MARRIAGE Irresponsible writers have discussed the marriage system of India in so irrational and inaccurate a manner that the name _India_ has become, in the mind of the westerner, synonymous with child marriage. These writers have tried to show that child marriage is the result of a law of the Hindu religion, which, according to them, strictly enjoins the parents to enforce the marriage of their daughters at a tender age under penalty of heavenly vengeance. They say that the law enjoins that girls shall be married before the age of puberty, and, as a result, the majority of Hindu girls become mothers nine months after reaching puberty. One such writer[13] picks a few lines from the Hindu poet Tagore’s essay in Keyserling’s _Book of Marriage_, and, mutilating its text by clever omissions, misquotes it to prove the poet a defender of child marriage. This unholy attempt of the author to misrepresent the noted poet and philosopher deserves strong censure. In this chapter we shall discuss the facts about marriage in India and its allied subject of child marriage. The Hindu religion strictly forbids child marriage. The following quotation from the Rig Veda explains the ideal of marriage: “Woman is to be man’s comrade in life, his _Sakhi_, with the same range of knowledge and interests, mature in body, mind and understanding, able to enter into a purposeful union on equal terms with a man of equal status, as life partner, of her own free choice, both dedicating their lifework as service to the divine Lord of the Universe, both ready to fulfil the purpose of married life from the day of marriage onward.”[14]