2. Marriage customs.
Marriage within the khero is prohibited and also the union of first cousins. It is considered disgraceful to accept a price for a bride, and it is said that this is not done even by the parents of poor girls, but the caste will in such cases raise a subscription to defray the expenses of her marriage. In the northern Districts the marriages of Dhobis are characterised by continuous singing and dancing at the houses of the bridegroom and bride, these performances being known as sajnai and birha. Some man also puts on a long coat, tight down to the waist and loose round the hips, to have the appearance of a dancing-girl, and dances before the party, while two or three other men play. Mr. Crooke considers that this ritual, which is found also among other low castes, resembles the European custom of the False Bride and is intended to divert the evil eye from the real bride. He writes:[1] “Now there are numerous customs which have been grouped in Europe under the name of the False Bride. Thus among the Esthonians the false bride is enacted by the bride’s brother dressed in woman’s clothes; in Polonia by a bearded man called the Wilde Braut; in Poland by an old woman veiled in white and lame; again among the Esthonians by an old woman with a brickwork crown; in Brittany, where the substitutes are first a little girl, then the mistress of the house, and lastly the grandmother.
“The supposition may then be hazarded in the light of the Indian examples that some one assumes on this occasion the part of the bride in order to divert on himself from her the envious glance of the evil eye.” Any further information on this interesting custom would be welcome.
The remarriage of widows is allowed, and in Betūl the bridegroom goes to the widow’s house on a dark night wrapped up in a black blanket, and presents the widow with new clothes and bangles, and spangles and red lead for the forehead. Divorce is permitted with the approval of the caste headman by the execution of a deed on stamped paper.