Illegitimate children share equally with the legitimate their fathers’ acquired property, but not his inherited property which goes exclusively to the legitimate children.
Polyandry was a well established institution in Ceylon; the associated husbands are invariably brothers or cousins. Polyandry was practised to prevent a sub-division of the ancestral property and also owing to the exigencies of the râjakâriya (feudal service); when the brothers on a farm were called out for their fifteen days’ labour, custom allowed one of them to be left behind as a companion to the female at home.
Divorces are obtained by mutual consent; a husband forcibly removing the switch of hair off his wife’s head was considered a sufficient reason for a separation. If a woman left her husband without his consent it was thought illegal for her to marry till the husband married again.
Contracts were made orally or in writing in the presence of witnesses, sanctioned by the imprecation that the one who broke faith will be born a dog, a crow or in one of the hells, and the contract was expected to last till the sun and moon endure. Representations of a dog, a crow, sun and moon are to be found on stones commemorating a royal gift. If a man contracts by giving a stone in the king’s name it is binding and actionable.
A creditor forced the payment of his debt by going to the debtor’s house and threatening to poison himself with the leaves of the niyangalâ (gloriosa superba) or by threatening to jump down a steep place or to hang himself; on which event the debtor would be forced to pay to the authorities a ransom for the loss of the creditor’s life.
The creditor at times sent a servant to the debtor’s house to live there and make constant demands till payment was made; and at times tethered an unserviceable bull, cow or buffalo in the debtor’s garden, who was obliged to maintain it, be responsible for its trespass on other gardens, and to give another head of cattle, if it died or was lost in his keeping.
When a man died indebted, it was customary for a relative to tie round his neck a piece of rag with a coin attached and beg about the country till the requisite sum was collected.
When a debt remained in the debtor’s hands for two years it doubled itself and no further interest could be charged. A creditor had the right to seize, on a permit from a chief, the debtor’s chattels and cattle or make the debtor and his children slaves. A wife, however, could only be seized if she was a creditor and came with her husband to borrow the money, and the creditor could sell the debtor’s children only after the debtor’s death. A man could pawn or sell himself or his children. Children born to a bond woman by a free man were slaves, while children born to a free woman by a bond man were free. If seed paddy is borrowed, it is repaid with 50 percent. interest at the harvest; if the harvest fails, it is repaid at the next successful harvest, but no further interest is charged.
If cattle be borrowed for ploughing, the owner of the cattle is given at the harvest paddy equal to the amount sown on the field ploughed.
The King alone inquired into murder, treason, sacrilege, conspiracy and rebellion; he alone had the right to order capital punishment or the dismemberment of limbs; his attention was drawn to a miscarriage of justice by the representation of a courtier, by the aggrieved persons taking refuge in a sanctuary like the Daladâ Mâligâva, by prostrating in front of the King’s palace and attracting his attention by making their children cry, or by ascending a tree near the palace and proclaiming their grievances.