--Vibart's Moralities.
We are a high-caste and enlightened race, and infant-marriage is very shocking
and the consequences are sometimes peculiar; but, nevertheless, the Hindu
notion--which is the Continental notion--which is the aboriginal notion--of
arranging marriages irrespective of the personal inclinations of the married,
is sound. Think for a minute, and you will see that it must be so; unless, of
course, you believe in "affinities." In which case you had better not read
this tale. How can a man who has never married; who cannot be trusted to pick
up at sight a moderately sound horse; whose head is hot and upset with visions
of domestic felicity, go about the choosing of a wife? He cannot see straight
or think straight if he tries; and the same disadvantages exist in the case of
a girl's fancies. But when mature, married and discreet people arrange a match
between a boy and a girl, they do it sensibly, with a view to the future, and
the young couple live happily ever afterwards. As everybody knows.
Properly speaking, Government should establish a Matrimonial Department,
efficiently officered, with a Jury of Matrons, a Judge of the Chief Court, a
Senior Chaplain, and an Awful Warning, in the shape of a love-match that has
gone wrong, chained to the trees in the courtyard.
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