Par. 1. “Now that the Age of Consent Act has been passed by his Excellency the Viceroy, in Council, and as there is every likelihood of its provisions not being sufficiently well understood by the Mahomedan community in general, and by the ignorant Mahomedans in particular, owing to the use of technical legal phraseology in the drafting of the Act, it seems to the Committee of Management of the Mahomedan Literary Society of Calcutta, to be highly desirable that the object and intention of the Government in passing this Act, as well as its scope and the manner in which it is to be administered by the Criminal Authorities, should be laid down on paper in the clearest and easiest language possible, for the information and instruction of the Mahomedan population, and particularly of such of them as are not conversant with legal technicalities.” Par. 2. “The Committee are of opinion that such a course will be highly beneficial to members of their community, inasmuch as it will show to them distinctly what action on the part of a Mahomedan husband towards his young wife has been made, by the recent legislation, a heinous criminal offence of no less enormity than the offence of _rape_, and punishable with the same heavy punishment.” Par. 3. “It is hoped that they will thereby be put on their guard against committing, or allowing the commission of an act which _they have hitherto been accustomed to think lawful and innocent_, but which has now been made into a heinous offence....” Par. 9. “... There has already been a provision in the Indian Penal Code, passed more than thirty years ago, that a man having sexual intercourse with his own wife, with or without her consent, she _being under the age of ten years_, shall be considered guilty of the offence of _rape_, and shall be liable to transportation for life, or to rigorous or simple imprisonment for ten years.” Par. 10. “From this it follows that, under the Penal Code a man having sexual intercourse with his own wife, with or without her consent, if she is _above ten_ years of age, shall not be considered to have committed the offence of _rape_. But the Act that has just been passed, in amendment of the above provision in the Penal Code, _raises_ the age of consent from _ten_ to _twelve_ years, and provides that a man having sexual intercourse with his own wife, even with her consent, shall be considered to be guilty of the offence of rape, if the wife be of any age under _twelve completed years_. This is all the change that has been made in the law.”