The marriage was between two different castes, a Brahman and a non-Brahman, and under present British Indian Law no religious ceremony had validity for such a marriage.
Was this true? No. Any form of marriage may be judged by a Court, on the basis of a law suit brought by an affected party, to be invalid for some particular reason- e.g. the insanity of the groom, the fact that the officiating priest was an impostor bribed for the purpose, or, as in my case, the bride had a reasonable belief that she was actually purchasing a donkey of some type.
As far as the British were concerned, a Hindu religious ceremony was valid if Hindus, by and large, considered it valid, irrespective of the caste or lack of it of either party. Sadly, orthodox Hindus and Muslims vigorously opposed Civil Marriage which, in 1872 became available only to Brahmos or those willing to abjure their own religion at birth. Later, in 1909, the Sikhs were able to secure the Anand Marriage Act for themselves as a way to protect, inter-alia, their own inter-caste marriages from vexatious litigation at the time of inheritance.
British Courts were willing to concede that though any type of religious marriage was valid in the absence of any interested party's objection, it was a different matter that a marriage between people of different castes might lead to their becoming outcaste or their issue being outcaste. But this followed from the fact that a caste was a voluntary association such that caste membership was decided by the caste itself. A judgment by members of a particular caste that such and such product of an inter-caste marriage - or the persons who had engaged in it- was to be considered outcaste could stand but judicial recourse was available, more particularly if any substantive matter- e.g. damage to reputation, claims to property or other inheritance rights- was involved. The principle of audi alteram partem applied- i.e. no person should be judged without a fair hearing in which each party is given the opportunity to respond to the evidence against them. In a case where a prominent lawyer himself conducted the marriage of a daughter or younger sister, it is obvious that inheritance rights or other substantive matters could be dealt with through properly made Wills or Trust documents.
I suppose that Nehrus, as luminaries of the Allahabad bar, were painfully conscious of the Allahabad High Court's decision that no marriage between a Brahmin girl and a non-Brahmin could be valid, and thus, as a matter of abundant caution, utilized the device of Civil Marriage. Incidentally, the older daughter had gone through 'a form of marriage' with a Muslim. This was not valid precisely because of the restrictive nature of the relevant Act. Thankfully, Gandhi's secretary, Mahadev Desai, was able to supply a Brahmin groom for Vijaylaxmi.
Around this time , the Mahatma's son married a Brahmin girl. They had a Hindu ceremony and that was that. Nobody suggested that the marriage was invalid by reason of being 'pratiloma' though High Courts had ruled otherwise (e.g. Lakshmi vs Kaliansing 1900). But this handicap placed on Brahmin girls was the handiwork of Brahmin barristocrats, not the British.
Fortunately a recently passed Civil Marriage Act came to our rescue.
I suppose this is the 1923 act brought in by Dr. Harisingh Gour.
There were two such Acts, the second one, under which my sister’s marriage took place, being confined to Hindus and those belonging to allied faiths — Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs. But if either party does not belong to one of these faiths, by birth or conversion, then this second Act does not apply and the first Civil Marriage Act has to be resorted to.
That was the Brahmo Act of 1872.
This first Act requires from both the parties a denunciation of all the leading religions, or at any rate a statement that they do not belong to them. This wholly unnecessary denunciation is a great nuisance. Many people, even though they are not religiously inclined, object to this statement and thus cannot take advantage of the Act. The orthodox of various faiths oppose all changes which would facilitate inter-marriages. The result is that they drive people either to make that statement of denunciation or to a patently superficial conversion to get within the law. Personally 1 should like to encourage inter-marriages, but whether they are encouraged or not, it is very necessary to have a permissive general civil marriage Act, applicable to persons of all religions, permitting them to marry without any denunciation or change of faith.
There was no bar on marriage of any religious or customary sort. What obtained was the danger that the validity of a marriage being called into question with a view to disinheriting the issue of a particular marriage. But, for Hindus, this could happen even if the marriage was between people of the same caste. This was because it could be claimed that the parties were 'sagotra' (though for certain communities, 'sagotra' was held to be customary). This was quite foolish because it invariably happened that in such cases the bride was notionally adopted into the presiding priest's family and thus her gotra became different. Still, lawyers could get rich engaging in this type of litigation.
It is interesting that Nehru conducted the marriage of his own daughter, Indira, according to neo-Vedic rituals concocted by a Kashmiri Pandit who was a Professor of Sanskrit at St. Stephens. Some Zoroastrians who opposed the marriage pointed out that legally speaking, Indira was Feroze's concubine. As a Brahmin she could not be his wife. But there's another way of looking at it. Feroze was merely a boy-friend. Nehru's daughter could not marry within her caste because that caste was now superior to all others and contained only her Daddy, her self, and her sons. Once a widow, Indira would be the Empress of India and her heirs by primogeniture, however incompetent, would inherit the Indian National Congress and its colossal corruption.
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