3. Marriage and other customs
Marriage is forbidden within the sept. In some localities persons descended from a common ancestor may not intermarry for five generations, but in others a brother’s daughter may be wedded to a sister’s son. A man is forbidden to marry two sisters while both are alive, and after his wife’s death he may espouse her younger sister, but not her elder one. Girls are usually wedded at a tender age, but some Sunārs have hitherto had a rule that neither a girl nor a boy should be married until they had had smallpox, the idea being that there can be no satisfactory basis for a contract of marriage while either party is still exposed to such a danger to life and personal appearance; just as it might be considered more prudent not to buy a young dog until it had had distemper. But with the spread of vaccination the Sunārs are giving up this custom. The marriage ceremony follows the Hindustāni or Marātha ritual according to locality.[4] In Betūl the mother of the bride ties the mother of the bridegroom to a pole with the ropes used for tethering buffaloes and beats her with a piece of twisted cloth, until the bridegroom’s mother gives her a present of money or cloth and is released. The ceremony may be designed to express the annoyance of the bride’s mother at being deprived of her daughter. Polygamy is permitted, but people will not give their daughter to a married man if they can find a bachelor husband for her. Well-to-do Sunārs who desire increased social distinction prohibit the marriage of widows, but the caste generally allow it.