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THE IDEAL OF INDIAN WOMANHOOD
Celibacy, therefore, is an outrage against nature. However, supposing there is a mass flight from marriage, what will be the result? There will be a promiscuous practice of sex-intercourse, in the so-called immoral and illicit manner.
One may choose not to marry, refuse to enter into a man-made relation ; but he is bound to cbey the law of nature. Some of the bachelors may be celibates; the majority are not. Therefore, apart from the moral aspect, the abnormal situation will produce a new problem-illegitimate children en masse. That nasty problem could be obviated in one of the two possible ways: clandestine infanticide on an enormous scale, or practice of birthcontrol. No sensible person would dispute that the latter alternative would certainly be preferable, morally as well as humanly. Trying to find an alternative to the "immoral and unnatural" practice of birth-control, we are thus driven to that very device as the lesser of the two evils born of futile attempt to find an easy way out of a difficult social situation.
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Then, mass flight from marriage is not a practical proposition. It is not permitted by Hindu social custom. To marry is a religious duty; sa also is to beget children,-in wedlock. Those who would not permit the practice of birth control on moral and religious grounds, could not, for the same reason, countenance refusal to marry, except in the cases of individuals taking the vow of celi
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