Sivanath Sastri - Marriage

Marriage

As per the custom of the day, Sivanath Sastri was married to Prasannamoyee when he was 12 or 13 years old. She ran into problems with his family while still a young girl. That was within four or five years of her marriage and she was then around 15 years old. While he was living in Kolkata, his father decided to ‘return’ her to father’s house and get him married a second time.

He was married a second time, in 1865 or 1866, to Birajmohini. He had protested strongly against this second marriage and even had his mother’s support but he could not finally stand up against the wishes of his father. He was greatly repentant for what happened and was mentally disturbed about it. Umesh Chandra Dutta sent him a copy of Theodore Parker’s Ten Sermons and Prayers. He found solace in reading the book. The realities of life in that age shocked him and the incident pushed him further towards the Brahmo Samaj.

Subsequently, problems cropped up in the family with Birajmohini and his father was intent also on ‘returning’ her to her father’s house but Sivanath Sastri stood up and prevented it. Later, he proposed to get Prasannamoyee married a second time but she spurned the proposal. Sivanath accepted her in his family but did not maintain a husband-wife relationship with her.