As soon as the parents of a young man had discovered a suitable girl, when the auguries were favorable, they provided themselves with presents and went and formally asked for her. Then the parents of the girl, at a favorable moment, gave their consent and accepted the presents. Then the priest who presided at public and private ceremonies fixed on a lucky day and great preparations were made. The wedding garments were prepared, the stores for feasts and for presents were got together, and all the many other things needed. A canopy was erected and all the relatives and friends invited.
The marriage ceremony lasted for five days. The first day was the great day, as it was the day on which the most important and solemn ceremonies took place. The gods and the ancestors and other divinities were invited to be present. Then a number of rites and ceremonies were performed, in which the bride and bridegroom, the parents, and guests partook. Near the close of these ceremonies the husband fastened round the neck of the young wife the tali, the little gold ornament which all married women wore round their necks, and which performed by the husband showed that henceforth the woman was to be his property. The day was ended with a specially magnificent feast.
Amongst the ceremonies of the second day was the placing of an ornament, covered with gold-leaf or gold paper and entwined with flowers, on the forehead of both husband and wife to avert the effects of the evil eye, the spell which is cast by the looks of jealous or ill-disposed people. On the third day the wife joined in the sacrifice offered by the husband, the only occasion on which a woman could take an active part in any of the sacrifices. The only remarkable ceremony on the fourth day was that the newly married couple rubbed each other's legs three times with powdered saffron, of which Dubois did not understand the meaning and fancied its only object was to kill time, just as Europeans under similar circumstances would spend their time in drinking. The fifth day was chiefly occupied in dismissing the gods and the ancestors and the other divinities that had been invited to the feast. Then followed the distribution of presents. The festivity ended with a solemn procession through the streets, which generally took place at night by torchlight in the midst of squibs and fireworks of all kinds.
A girl's lot after marriage must have been dreadful in many cases, as she became a servant to the mother of her husband, who too often tried in every way to make the young girl miserable. In her husband's home the young wife occupied the back of the house with the other women and she must take the humblest place in this apartment for women. The little girl was scolded quite a great deal and received no, or but little, praise. "I have several times seen young wives shamefully beaten by beastly young husbands who cherished no natural love for them.... A child of thirteen was cruelly beaten by her husband in my presence for telling the simple truth, that she did not like so well to be in his house as at her home."[56] Yet, there are here and there bright spots in this dark home life.
Polygamy was practiced in ancient India, and even down to later times, as was true among many other ancient nations, but as a rule it was confined to kings and wealthy lords. It was not looked upon with great favor. A person of inferior rank was not allowed to have more than one wife, except in case his wife was barren or had only borne female children, but before he could contract a second marriage he had to obtain the consent of the first wife.
"Women in India have ever been remarkable for their faithfulness and their duteous affection towards their husbands, and female unfaithfulness is comparatively rare."[57] Adultery was looked upon with the greatest detestation in India. Yet the heinousness of the crime was regulated by the caste of the offender, for a man of high caste committing adultery with a woman of low caste was by no means so severely punished as was a man of low caste with a woman of high caste. In case the man was a Sudra and the woman of one of the three higher castes he suffered capital punishment, but as on no account was a Brahmin to be punished with death, this offence could not bring it to him.
"Although no law has ever said so, the popular belief is that a woman can have no salvation unless she be formally married."[58] Perhaps for this belief parents became extremely anxious when their daughters were over eight or nine years of age and were unsought in marriage. This was so strong it frequently happened that poor parents feeling that their daughters must be married would marry girls of eight or nine to men of sixty or seventy. In the early times child marriages were unknown, but later boys among the Brahmins married at about sixteen years of age and girls generally at five or seven or, at the utmost, nine years of age. One author states that among the Brahmins, if any girl remained unmarried until she was eleven years old the family was suspended from caste.[59]
In early times in India, widows married and men belonging to one caste married widows of other castes. "A droll story is told of the daughter of a householder of Mâlava who married eleven husbands successively; and on the death of the eleventh husband the plucky widow would probably have welcomed a twelfth, but 'even the stones could not help laughing at her,' so she took to the life of an ascetic."[60] But Manu laid down that a widow should never even mention the name of another man after her husband had died, and that a second husband was nowhere prescribed for virtuous women. A widower, whatever his age might be, and to whatever caste he might belong, could marry again; but a woman of the Brahminical caste, whether she ever lived with her husband or not, was not allowed again to enter the married state. Sad was the state of these widows, for they were cast out of society, but however despised they might have been, if one remarried her lot became even worse, for she was shunned absolutely by every honest and respectable person. "I once witnessed amongst the Gollavarus, or shepherds, an instance of even greater severity. A marriage had been arranged, and, in the presence of the family concerned, certain ceremonies which were equivalent to betrothal amongst ourselves had taken place. Before the actual celebration of the marriage, which was fixed for a considerable time afterwards, the bridegroom died. The parents of the girl, who was very young and pretty, thereupon married her to another man. This was in direct violation of the custom of the caste, which condemns to perpetual widowhood girls thus betrothed, even when, as in this case, the future bridegroom dies before marriage has been consummated. The consequence was that all the persons who had taken part in the second ceremony were expelled from caste, and nobody would contract marriage or have any intercourse whatever with them. A long time afterwards I met several of them, well advanced in age, who had been for this reason alone unable to obtain husbands or wives, as the case might be."[61]
Suttee is the name given to the act of a woman immolating herself upon the funeral pile with the body of her deceased husband. This was not practiced in the early times of India, yet it was quite old as it was known from the time of Alexander, and even earlier. It continued down till the nineteenth century, when a noted Hindu, Raja Ram Mohun Roy, got up such an agitation against it that Lord William Bentinck, Governor-General of India, enacted a law in 1829, which prohibited suttee within British dominion and made all assistance, aid, or participation in any act of it to be murder and punishable with death. But it did not fully cease till near the middle of the century.
"Dr. Carey appears to have been the first who made efforts to ascertain the extent of this practice in Bengal, and he found that the number of widows who perished in this way, within 30 miles of Calcutta, in 1803, was 438. In 1817 the number of cases officially reported to the magistrate in Bengal was 706. In 1818 the number was 839, thus making 1,545 in two years. The number which took place in Bengal from 1815-1826, or for 12 years, as officially reported to the English magistrates, was 7,154. This number includes only those which took place in Bengal. There was no means of ascertaining the whole number of cases in the country. Mr. W. Ward estimated them at 3,000 annually."[62] The practice was chiefly among kings, princes, Brahmins, and the wealthy and this made it all the more horrid, because these were the men who practiced polygamy, and several of the wives were burned with the husband's dead body. Instances are recorded of 5, 10, 15, 25, and even more, who thus sacrificed themselves. Everything was done to get a woman to sacrifice herself and if after mature deliberation she decided to do so there was no turning back for her. For if she did not go on the funeral pyre of her own free will she would be dragged to it by force. This is well portrayed in the following: