we are ruled by them that are the stronger, we must
obey in these things and in things yet sorer.”
Chapter III
THE HINDU WOMAN IN MARRIAGE
Marriage under the Hindu system is by no means easy to describe as in actual fact it is. The definitions and classifications given in the legal textbooks or Scriptures of the Hindus are little better than abstractions—deductions from assumed premises of a theological kind, with only a slender tie to the actual life of Hindu societies. The difficulties of practice arise from the vast complexities and fluid conditions of the great masses of peoples and races, with divergent levels of culture and inconsistent ideas, that compose the aggregate which for convenience is distinguished from all others by the collective name of Hinduism. For Hinduism is, of course, in no real sense a church or creed. It has no definite tenets and no articles of dogma. The acceptance of a certain social system, centring upon the existence of hereditary priesthoods with divinely-given powers of interposition and interpretation, is its final criterion. This system and its practical consequences once accepted, the man is free to believe and follow what creeds or philosophies he may please.
Yet through it all there is a certain rather vague and elusive unity of idea, a spirit, one might say, that in various forms penetrates and transmutes the varying material of creed and caste, of blood and race with which it is presented. In essence this is the spirit which regards the whole world as an unreal dream, an illusory changing scene of transformations, stretched over the realities of a higher ultimate world of Divine unity. Laws and customs are based not on a reasoned pursuit of the good as existent in this life; but upon the means, magical or supernatural, of acquiring merit in a supposed ultimate universe of timeless and permanent reality reached after final severance from the circle of birth and death. It is a spirit diametrically opposed to that Greek thought which placed before man as his final and only aim happiness or the excellent performance of function in the world we know. Hardly less is it opposed to the Semitic creeds which project the purposes and rewards of virtue into a similar world of similar perceptions and individualities conceived as existent on a higher plane attainable after death. For the unifying spirit of Hinduism, so far as it can be grasped as in any way one, rejects the world altogether as a reality and places its virtues not in any reasoned balance of human rights and duties, but in the observance of rituals and austerities commended by the authority of a hierarchy.
Hence marriage also, as far as it approaches the ideal, is based upon considerations that are non-rational and belong rather to a mystical or supernatural way of regarding life. Marriage to the Hindu thinker and idealist has nothing to do, in its ultimate causes, with the preferences of one man or one woman, nothing to do with the pursuit of happiness in a palpitating finite and human life. He sees in it no free union of two human wills, joined for their own contentment in an isolated human relation. Rather it is the connection of two incarnations of the world spirit during an unreal moment of illusory existence. The proper husband and wife are recognized and selected by magical arts exercised under the authority of the Sacred Books by certain classes of the priesthood. They are joined under a right conjunction of the stars, interpreted by an hereditary expert in the magic art of astrology. Their marriage is sanctified by miraculous rites and blessed and transformed by the repetition of mysterious Sanskrit phrases. They enter their new state purified as by a consecration. In a word, they deal with a sacrament, not with a human contract. It is not the satisfaction of human feelings that is sought, but the fulfilment of a ritual duty to the family, in its relation to the Divine Spirit.
This view of marriage, as an ordained sacrament, is manifested throughout the actual ceremonies of the wedding, at least among the castes that claim the higher ritual ranks. The bride and bridegroom must belong to the same subdivision of the caste and yet must not be related by a common descent from the same mythical founder of the family. Before they can be betrothed, the horoscopes must be studied by an hereditary astrologer to see that the proposed union does not traverse any of the influences of the stars in their conjunctions. Nowadays it is true that horoscopes have fallen somewhat into neglect among the more “advanced.” These allege that the time is wrongly found on any horologe except the old-fashioned water-clock and they insinuate—what is no doubt often true—that the verdict of the astrologer depends upon his emoluments. Thus even the most advanced of Hindus, if they do without such advice, do so on the ostensible ground that horoscopes are incorrectly delivered, not that in themselves they are unreasonable. Again the marriage is made between children, so that desire or personal preference shall not disturb the ordinances of heaven. The ceremony can take place only in the auspicious months when the constellations of Jupiter and Venus are in conjunction with the sun. At the wedding symbolic presentments of the boy’s and girl’s ancestors make more clear the significance of the wedding, as a mere phase in a family existence, in which the individual is as nothing and the race is all. When the moment approaches, the bride and bridegroom sit, face to face or side by side before the objects of worship, their right hands joined, a strand of red cotton round their necks, a cloth drawn as a screen between their faces. The priests chant Sanskrit verses, while the astrologer consults the water-clock, which is needed to read the exact sacerdotal hour. Then when the moment has come and the cloth is drawn, the pair turn round the sacred sacrificial fire, and the seven steps are taken which make the marriage indissoluble and eternal. The bridegroom turns to his wife and utters the sacred verse, “Oh! bride! give your heart to my work, make your mind agreeable to mine. May the God Brahaspati make you pleasing to me.” Then for himself he swears not to transgress, whether for wealth or love. And then they go out and look upon the Polar Star, that star which guided the first Aryan wanderers across Asia.
