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

CHAP. V.] THE LAW OF BIGAMY. 267

necessity for some change in the law as it applied to the Parsi community of Bombay.

We have already noticed in previous pages the wholesome and salutary rules which were passed by the Parsi Panchayet in the year 1818 against bigamy, but there was nothing in the law to uphold them. The Indian Penal Code, enforced by the Legislature in 1860, has, however, made marrying again during the lifetime of husband or wite punishable as an offence; and that provision of the law was calculated to check the tendency to bigamy, which had been increasing among the Parsis.

The Mahomedans and Hindus can take more than one wife, because their customs and religion sanction a plurality of wives. Hence a Hindu or a Mahomedan who marries during the lifetime of his first wife is not indictable under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code. But with the Parsis the question was a doubtful one. All the books of the Zoroastrian religion are not extant. It is known that, with or without the sanction of the Panchayet, Parsis have taken a second wife during the lifetime of the first; and it is doubtful, if a case had been taken before a criminal court (prior to the passing of the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act) under the Penal Code, whether a conviction would have been obtained so long as usage and custom could have been pleaded

in its favour.