Against High-Caste Polygamy offers a complete, annotated translation of Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar''s 1871 tract arguing against the practice of high-caste Kulin marriage in Bengal. Vidyasagar published this work fifteen years after passage of the Hindu Widow''s Remarriage Act, which owed so much to his earlier reform leadership. However, in the wake of the Rebellion of 1857 British and Indian attitudes toward official intervention in customary practicesunderwent a sea change.The British were increasingly reluctant to create unrest, while many Indian leaders began to question the legitimacy of seeking government assistance for social change. The age of active collaboration between the British officials and Indian reformers had passed. In Against High-CastePolygamy, Vidyasagar demonstrates both his continued faith in an earlier approach to reform and his frustration at the new tenor of the times.Against High-Caste Polygamy is not a treatise on polygamy in general. Rather, it addresses a s
