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FRAGMENTS OF A PRISONER S DIARY
automaton. A sociсty, composed of robots, who do not think, but only obcy, is a prison. Laws are sovercign only when they are made by common consent. Of course, social conduct and family relations should be disciplined, but the discipline must not be imposed from above. It should be voluntary. Otherwise, it is coercion. The disciplino demanded by one of our “inodern Rishis" is of this kind.
Tiere might be some excuse for this autocratic doctrine of social and family relations, if discipling was demanded from all coucerned. But that is not the case. It is ncither 2 matter of argument nor of theory. It is a matter of fact that, while with women scripturally prescribed discipline is an absolute bondage, with men, it is a matter of mere formality. Indeed, even theoretically, the burden of discipline is not cquitably distributed. Man, as the father and husband, is the disciplinarian; the burden of discipline falls all on the woman. The Hindu marriage ceremony does not cstablish a relation of companionship. It places the woman under the protection of the man. And the social protectorate of inan over woman is no more an "alliance for existence", for mutual benefit, than political protectorate of the stronger Powers over the weak. In either case, protectorate is a camouflaged form of possession. The rituals of Hindu marriage give lie to all the lyrical legends about, and sophistical interpretations of, the rela
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