That is, any one can easily accuse another saying that it is dishonest and atrocious to remarry during the life-time of one’s spouse. Things, however, will become clear, if one having a minimum of common sense, thoughtfully considers either in terms of one’s rationality or of experience, whether it is really wrong to do so, or is it right to accuse one doing so, or it is proper to so interfere (in another’s affairs). Of this we are sure.
Finally this needs to be said. It is the duty of those in search of true freedom and liberation to seriously consider who has the right to determine the basic question concerning what one wants or does not want something and has the right to do or does not have the right to do a certain thing; is it oneself or anybody else; and does not one have the right to decide one’s own matters? How does one live in a situation in which there is no affection, or failed to develop attachment? Is marriage a life-contract, made by a man and woman for the fulfillment of love, desire, pleasure and satisfaction man for woman and woman for man? Or is it made for deprivation of all love, desire, pleasure and satisfaction merely because marriage has been contracted? We demand that every one having the sensitivity of human beings to reflect upon this. It certainly not easy to liberate people who are helplessly caught up in the superstitious customs and meaningless constraints of society. But on the other hand, if people complain against those very institutions (self-respect movement) meant for the removal of such customs and constraints for non- compliance with blind and superstitions practices, such people, do they have any sense? One is compelled to raise this question. As this Self-Respect Movement has been initiated to bring about the very rational situation, how else would its activities be? Therefore, let our friends think from a neutral position as to why practices that go against rationality, experience, human freedom, happiness and satisfaction should be protected at all.
Let us for a moment consider the dissatisfactions in respect of remarriage among people of the Self- Respect Movement itself. Annulment of marriage is a point in the agenda of the Self-Respect Movement. A resolution was passed to this effect at the Chengalpet Conference, and the one at Erode also demanded of the Government that a law be passed to that effect. Accordingly it has been agreed that there exists the right for man to divorce the woman he has married and for the woman to divorce the man she has married. If some religionists have any difficulty in turning this agreement into a law, what would people do whose problem it is, considering the legal situation, continue to suffer or forgetting the law, behave according to what they think is fair and just? Such a line of thinking, we think, would leave no place for dissatisfaction. For example, some of the marriages conducted according to the Self- Respect policy may not be valid as per law. We hear some legal experts suggesting that what are called mixed marriages, that is marriage between parties belonging to different castes and those in which superstitious, meaningless and entirely dispensable rituals are not performed may not pass the test of law. Even then we see that out of commitment to ideology, bypassing the law and possible legal implications, many are coming forward and getting married. Therefore in the matter of such remarriages, apart from its being said that legal divorce could not be had, that is, remarriages were conducted without the cancellation of the earlier ones, it does not appear to us that the remarrying Self-Respecters have gone wrong either in fairness or their commitment to principles.
Let us now turn to why Self-Respect policy supports even those remarriages which are conducted when the previous marriage subsists, that is when the husband and wife are living together. It does not appear to us that there is any justice in the prescription that people’s expressions of love and desire must be brought within certain discipline and that they ought to be expressed between particular individuals, in a particular way only. Desire is natural to life.
