History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

266 HISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. v,

Succession Act in all its important bearings, the Commission proceeded to review the evidence adduced before it in reference to the supplemental draft code of betrothal, marriage, and divorce, under the following heads :—Was there any necessity for special legislation as to the Parsi law of marriage and divorce? and if so, was the special legislation proposed in the draft code generally unobjectionable ?

As to the necessity for special legislation on these points, the Commission remarked that at all events for the Parsis of the Presidency towns it had formed a clear opinion, previous to the establishment of the High Court of Judicature.

Before that the Bombay Parsis, a body constituting the preponderating majority of the entire Parsi population of India, far in advance of any other portion of the Parsi race in wealth, intelligence, and civilisation, had, since the decision of the Privy Council in 1856, been living in a state of lawlessness as to all that regards the marriage tie, of which even in the most barbarous communities there are not many wellattested examples. They had no law at all on the subject. Hach man did as seemed good in his own eyes. A paper, carefully prepared by the secretaries of the Parsi Law Association and submitted to the Commission, disclosed the occurrence, within two years, of not less than twenty-six well-known cases

of bigamy. This fact was sufficient to show the