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CONTRACEPTION

given in marriage before their first menstrual discharge, and that should marriage not take place until after this event, the marriage is regarded in a sinful light." In short "Atri and Kasyapa (Hindu sages) state, that if an unmarried girl discharges the menstrual fluid at her father's house, the father incurs a guilt similar to that of destroying a fœtus, and the daughter becomes . . . . degraded in rank."

Now here is an absolutely logical position, indeed the only logical position opposed to scientific contraception. The Roman and Anglican Churches,[1] with their weak shilly-shallying round the subject, both take utterly illogical positions which are indefensible in the face of keen argument.

Nevertheless, although the Hindu sages pushed their attitude to its logical conclusion and organized society on that basis, such logic leads to some very contradictory results in practice, and infant murder became so common, particularly that of

  1. ↑ Note: Perhaps for those who have taken no interest in Comparative Theology it should be remarked that to speak of Indian religions in the same breath as our own is not, as it were, to compare them with the idolatry of remote savages, for as the Encyclopædia Britannica says, "The ancient religions of Europe and India had a similar origin. They were to some extent made up of the sacred stories or myths which our common ancestors had learned while dwelling together in Central Asia."

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