Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 255

PAYMENT TO A FATHER-IN-LAW
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If a poor man, after the marriage has taken
disputes.
place, cannot pay the stipulated amount, his father-in-law
sues him for it, and takes his daughter away hoping that
the desire to have her back again will induce the man to
Sometimes this succeeds, but it pretty
find the money.
often happens that the son-in-law, being always unable to
pay the debt, leaves his wife for years as a pledge with his
father-in-law, and at last the latter, convinced that by this
means he will get nothing, and fearing lest his daughter
should succumb to the temptations to which her youth
exposes her, withdraws his demands. A compromise is
l
effected and the husband at length regains his wife
The fourth method, to which none but the very poorest
have recourse, is very mortifying to the girl's parents, for
they go themselves and hand her over to the tender mercies
.
of the young man's parents, leaving it to them to do what
they will with her, to marry her when and how they like,
to spend as little or as much as they choose on the wedding,
and begging them at the same time to pay them something
for their daughter.
As soon as the parents have discovered a suitable girl,
and have ascertained if the family are likely to assent,
they choose a day when all the auguries are favourable,
and go to formally ask for her. They provide themselves
with a new cloth, such as is worn by women, a cocoanut,
by one of the speakers at an annual conference of the Kistna District
Association
Gentlemen
The monstrous custom of selling girls needs
no words of mine to make you try to root it out from our society. I will
give you one particular case which will show you the advisability of
taking proper steps to remove the evil. A certain gentleman, in a certain
village, married his daughter, ten years old, to an old man of eighty-one,
and received Rs. 2,000 for the bargain. In due course the girl matured,
and the nuptial ceremony was performed. The girl was sent to her
hated husband, much against her will. She escaped from the room in
the dead of night and threw herself into a well. When the old man
awoke in the morning he missed his young wife, and, on search being
made, her dead body was found floating in a well. There are several
instances of this sort.
In some cases, if the ill-assorted pair be seen
together, the bride will appear as a daughter, or even a grand-daughter.
The young brides become widows even in a week after their marriages.
These evils are too apparent to me, and I think you will enthusiastically
carry this resolution.' Ed.
1
I do not believe that any Hindu father of respectability would take
such a step. Ed.
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