8. Marriage customs.
A man may not take a wife either from his own section or that of his mother or his grandmother, nor from those of the husbands of his father’s sisters. For a Jāt wedding a square enclosure is marked out with pegs, and a thread is wound seven times round the pegs touching the ground, and covered over with rice or wheat so that it may not be burnt. The enclosure is known as Chaonri, and inside it the hom or fire sacrifice is performed with butter, barley, sesamum, sugar and saffron placed on the top of a heap of wheat-flour. After the sacrifice the bride and bridegroom walk seven times round the Chaonri with their right hands inwards. After this tufts of cotton are thrown over the bodies of the bridegroom and bride and they have to pick it off each other, the one who finishes first being considered the winner. This is apparently a symbolical imitation of the agricultural operation of cotton-picking. The remarriage of widows is permitted, the ceremony being usually performed on a Saturday. A bachelor who is to marry a widow must first walk seven times round a pīpal tree. Contrary to the usual custom, a widow is forbidden to espouse her deceased husband’s younger brother or any of his relations within three degrees of consanguinity.