RAM CHANDRA BHATTACHARJEE Vs. MANJU BHATTACHARJEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Let a man who has finished his studentship of the Vedas or sacred literature take a spouse, an auspicious woman, who is not defiled by connection with another man, is agreeable, non-sapinda, younger in age and shorter in stature, free from disease, is born from a different Gotra and Pravaran, is beyond the fifth and the seventh from the mother and from the father respectively. So that is how the ancient law givers of India directed a groom to choose his bride. Marriage, according to Hindu Law was sacred and it is the religious duty of the father to give his daughter in marriage to a suitable person.

(2.) It is useful to observe the circumstances dealt with by my learned brother, which have given rise to this appeal. They provide useful materials for the student of social conditions namely that, whether a valid marriage has been performed in Gandharya form between the parties, being Vaidik Bhattacharjee Brahmins of Bhatapara.

(3.) Besides the old Smriti writings of Mann with Medhatithi's commentaries and his Samhitas translated by Manmatha Nath Dutt Shastri and the writings of Kulakbhatta. Gautam, Bandhayana, Vasistha, Vishnu, Yainavalkya, Narada, Yama, Devala. Sulapani and the recent Digests of Colebrooke and Morley, Sacred Books of the East by Max Muller and the texts of Macnaughten, Hindu Law and Custom by Dr. Jolly, Trevelyan and J. C. Ghose's texts on Hindu Law, Baneriee's Marriage and Stridhan and besides the recent texts of Mayne and Mullah -- if a student in law wants to track out the forms of marriage specially in Gandharva form, in the most remote ages and regions, he will have to go through the Dharma Shastras, Vyavastha Chandrika by Shyama Charan Sarkar, and Vivada Ratnakar of Chan- dreswar and Vivada and Vyavahara and Kritya and Sradh Chintamani by Vachas-pati Misra (particularly for the Mithila School of Hindu Law), Raghunandan on his Udbahatawitta, Risley's Tribes and Castes of India and Law and Customs on Hindu Castes by Arthur Steel.