Those whom the visit of Keshub Chunder Sen to this
country taught to take an interest in the religious fortunes of the Brahmo Somaj will find a very interesting and lucid exposition of the somewhat tangled question as to the Brahmo marriages, and the new marriage law proposed—with the view of relieving them from the obligation of the old idolatrous rites—first by Sir Henry Maine, and then by Mr. Fitzjames Stephen, in a pamphlet just published by Strahan, and coining from the pen of Miss S. D. Collet. The author explains very clearly the difference between the old idolatrous marriages and those which the Indian Theists have celebrated, and the doubts which have arisen as to the legal validity of the latter. She shows how difficult it was to remedy the mischief without bitterly alarming native public opinion, —how any remedy which only required persons anxious to enter into a valid mar- riage without idolatrous rites, to disclaim adhesion to the orthodox religious systems of India, would have the effect of subverting caste, because not compelling those who made such a disclaimer to regard themselves wholly as outcasts from Hindoo society. On the other hand ,the proposal to legalize only the marriages of persons who should declare themselves adherents of the Brahmo faith, alarmed the old-school conservative Brahmos, who profess to believe their marriages (though not idolatrous) quite legal, and who fear greatly any wider breach between themselves and Hindooism. On the whole subject Miss Collet passes a very clear judgment, and shows herself altogether much more mistress of the question than the writer who not long ago discussed it, not too liberally, in the Pall Mall Gazette.
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