11. Marriage customs.
There is generally no recognised custom of paying a bride- or bridegroom-price, but one or two instances of its being done are given in the subordinate articles. On the occasion of betrothal, among some subcastes, the boy’s father proceeds to the girl’s house and presents her with a māla or necklace of gold or silver coins or coral, and a mundri or silver ring for the finger. The contract of betrothal is made at the village temple and the caste-fellows sprinkle turmeric and water over the parties. Before the wedding the ceremony of Benaiki is performed; in this the bridegroom, riding on a horse, and the bride on a decorated chair or litter, go round their villages and say farewell to their friends and relations. Sometimes they have a procession in this way round the marriage-shed. Among the Mārwāri Banias a toran or string of mango-leaves is stretched above the door of the house on the occasion of a wedding and left there for six months. And a wooden triangle with figures perched on it to represent sparrows is tied over the door. The binding portion of the wedding is the procession seven times round the marriage altar or post. In some Jain subcastes the bridegroom stands beside the post and the bride walks seven times round him, while he throws sugar over her head at each turn. After the wedding the couple are made to draw figures out of flour sprinkled on a brass plate in token of the bridegroom’s occupation of keeping accounts. It is customary for the bride’s family to give sīdha or uncooked food sufficient for a day’s consumption to every outsider who accompanies the marriage party, while to each member of the caste provisions for two to five days are given. This is in addition to the evening feasts and involves great expense. Sometimes the wedding lasts for eight days, and feasts are given for four days by the bridegroom’s party and four days by the bride’s. It is said that in some places before a Bania has a wedding he goes before the caste panchāyat and they ask him how many people he is going to invite. If he says five hundred, they prescribe the quantity of the different kinds of provisions which he must supply. Thus they may say forty maunds (3200 lbs.) of sugar and flour, with butter, spices, and other articles in proportion. He says, ‘Gentlemen, I am a poor man; make it a little less’; or he says he will give gur or cakes of raw cane sugar instead of refined sugar. Then they say, ‘No, your social position is too high for gur; you must have sugar for all purposes.’ The more guests the host invites the higher is his social consideration; and it is said that if he does not maintain this his life is not worth living. Sometimes the exact amount of entertainment to be given at a wedding is fixed, and if a man cannot afford it at the time he must give the balance of the feasts at any subsequent period when he has money; and if he fails to do this he is put out of caste. The bride’s father is often called on to furnish a certain sum for the travelling expenses of the bridegroom’s party, and if he does not send this money they do not come. The distinctive feature of a Bania wedding in the northern Districts is that women accompany the marriage procession, and the Banias are the only high caste in which they do this. Hence a high-caste wedding party in which women are present can be recognised to be a Bania’s. In the Marātha Districts women also go, but here this custom obtains among other high castes. The bridegroom’s party hire or borrow a house in the bride’s village, and here they erect a marriage-shed and go through the preliminary ceremonies of the wedding on the bridegroom’s side as if they were at home.