4. Marriage.
Marriage is prohibited between members of the same sept and also between first cousins. In many localities families do not intermarry so long as they remember any relationship to have existed between them. In Mandla, Mr. Govind Moreshwar states, the Nadha and Kehera subcastes do not intermarry; but if a man desires a girl of the other subcaste he can be admitted into it on giving a feast to the caste-fellows according to his means, and thus marry her. Two families may exchange daughters in marriage. A maiden who goes wrong with a man of the caste or of any higher caste may be readmitted to the community under penalty of a feast to the caste and of having a lock of her hair cut off. In the Hindustāni Districts women do not accompany the marriage procession, but in the Marātha Districts they do. Among the Bhanāra Dhīmars of Chānda the wedding may be held either at the bride’s or the bridegroom’s house. In the former case a bride-price of Rs. 16 is paid, and in the latter one of Rs. 20, because the expenses of the bride’s family are increased if the wedding is held at her house. A custom exists among the poorer Dhīmars in Chānda of postponing the marriage ceremony to avoid expense; a man will thus simply take a girl for his wife, making a payment of Rs. 1–4 or twenty pence to her father and giving a feast to the community. She will then live in his house as his wife, and at some subsequent date, perhaps in old age, the religious ceremony will be held so that the couple may have been properly married before they die. In this fashion the weddings of grandparents, parents and children have all been celebrated simultaneously. The Singaria Dhīmars of Chhindwāra grow singāra or water-nut in tanks, and at their weddings a crocodile must be killed and eaten. The Sonjharas or gold-washers must also have a crocodile, but they keep it alive and worship it, and when the ceremony is concluded let it go back again to the river. It is natural that castes whose avocations are connected with rivers and tanks should in a manner deify the most prominent or most ferocious animal contained in their waters. And the ceremonial eating of a sacred animal has been recorded among divers peoples all over the world. At a Dhīmar marriage in Bhandāra a net is given to the bridegroom, and sidori or cooked food, tied in a piece of cloth, to the bride, and they walk out together as if going to a river to fish, but the bride’s brother comes up and stops them. After a wedding in Mandla they kill a pig and bury it before the door of the bridegroom’s house, covering it with earth, and the bride and bridegroom step over its body into the house. Widow-marriage is freely permitted; in Mandla the marriage of a widow may be held on the night of any day except Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday. Divorce is allowed, but is of rare occurrence. Adultery on the part of a wife will be frequently overlooked, and the extreme step of divorcing her is only taken if she creates a public scandal. In such a case the parties appear before a meeting of the caste, and the headman asks them whether they have determined to separate. He then breaks a straw in token of the disruption of the union, and the husband and wife must pronounce each other’s names in an audible voice.[2] A fee of Rs. 1–4 is paid to the headman, and the divorce is completed.[3] In some localities the woman’s bangles are also broken. In Jhānsi the fine for keeping a widow is ten rupees and for living with the wife of another man sixty rupees.