One of the social systems which we recognize in India is far more revolting to our English feelings than is that of polygamy—namely, the custom of polyandry, under which each woman has many husbands at a time. This custom we unofficially recognize as completely as we do polygyny, although it prevails only on the Malabar coast, and among the hill-tribes of the Himalaya, and not among the strict Hindoos. The Thibetan frontier tribes have a singular form of the institution, for with them the woman is the wife of all the brothers of a family, the eldest brother choosing her, and the eldest son succeeding to the property of his mother and all her husbands. In Southern India, the polyandry of the present day differs little from that which in the middle of the fifteenth century Niccolo de Conti found flourishing in Calicut. Each woman has several husbands, some as many as ten, who all contribute to her maintenance, she living apart from all of them; and the children are allotted to the husbands at the will of the wife.
The toleration of polygyny, or common polygamy, is a vexed question everywhere. In India, all authorities are in favor of respecting it; in Natal, opinion is the other way. While we suppress it in Ceylon, even among black races conquered by us with little pretext only fifty years ago, we are doubtful as to the propriety of its suppression by the United States among white people, who, whatever was the case with the original leaders, have for the most part settled down in Utah since it has been the territory of a nation whose imperial laws prohibit polygamy in plain terms.
The inquiries into the abuses of polygamy which have lately been conducted in Bengal and in Natal have revealed singular differences between the polygamy of the Hindoos and of the hill-tribes, between Indian and Mormon polygamy, and between both and the Mohammedan law. The Hindoo laws, while they limit the number of legal wives, allow of concubines, and, in the Maharajah case, Sir Joseph Arnould went so far as to say that polygamy and courtesanship are always found to flourish side by side, although the reverse is notoriously the case at Salt Lake City, where concubinage is punishable, in name at least, by death. Again, polygamy is somewhat discouraged by Mohammedan and Hindoo laws, and the latter even lay down the sum which in many cases is to be paid to the first wife as compensation for the wrong done her by the taking of other wives. Among the Mormons, on the other hand, polygamy is enjoined upon the faithful, and, so far from feeling herself aggrieved, the first wife herself selects the others, or is at the least consulted. Among some of the hill-tribes of India, such as the Paharis of Bhaugulpoor, polygamy is encouraged, but with a limitation to four wives.
Among the Mohammedans, the number of marriages is restricted, and divorce is common; among the Mormons, there is no limit—indeed, the more wives the greater a man‘s glory—and divorce is all-but unknown. The greatest, however, of all the many differences between Eastern and Mormon polygamy lies in the fact that, of the Eastern wives, one is the chief, while Mormon wives are absolutely equal in legitimacy and rank.
Not only is equality the law, but the first wife has recognized superiority of position over the others in the Mormon family. By custom she is always consulted by her husband in reference to the choice of a new wife, while the other wives are not always asked for their opinion; but this is a matter of habit, and the husband is in no way bound by her decision. Again, the first wife—if she is a consenting party—often gives away the fresh wives at the altar; but this, too, is a mere custom. The fact that in India one of the wives generally occupies a position of far higher dignity than that held by the others will make Indian polygamy easy to destroy by the lapse of time and operation of social and moral causes. As the city-dwelling natives come to mix more with the Europeans, they will find that only one of their wives will be generally recognized. This will tend of itself to repress polygamy among the wealthy native merchants and among the rajahs who are members of our various councils, and their example will gradually react upon the body of the natives. Already a majority of the married people of India are monogamists by practice, although polygamists in theory; their marriages being limited by poverty, although not by law. The classes which have to be reached are the noble families, the merchants, and the priests; and over the two former European influence is considerable, while the inquiry into Koolinism has proved that the leading natives will aid us in repressing the abuses of polygamy among the priests.
CHAPTER X.
UMRITSUR.
AT Umbala, I heard that the Sikh pilgrims returning from the sacred fair, or great Hindoo camp-meeting, at Hurdwar, had been attacked by cholera, and excluded from the town; and as I quitted Umbala in the evening, I came upon the cholera-stricken train of pilgrims escaping by forced marches toward their homes, in many cases a thousand miles away. Tall, lithe, long-bearded men with large hooked noses, high foreheads, and thin lips, stalked along, leading by one hand their veiled women, who ran behind, their crimson and orange trowsers stained with the dust of travel, while bullock-carts decked out with jingling bells bore the tired and the sick. Many children of all ages were in the throng. For mile after mile I drove through their ranks, as they marched with a strange kind of weary haste, and marched, too, with few halts, with little rest, if any. One great camp we left behind us, but only one; and all night long we were still passing ranks of marching men and women. The march was silent; there was none of the usual chatter of an Indian crowd; gloom was in every face, and the people marched like a beaten army flying from a destroying foe.
The disease, indeed, was pressing on their heels. Two hundred men and women, as I was told at the Umbala lines, had died among them in the single day. Many had dropped from fright alone, but the pestilence was in the horde, and its seeds were carried into whatever villages the pilgrims reached.
The gathering at Hurdwar had been attended by a million people drawn from every part of the Punjaub and Northwest; not only Hindoos and Sikhs, but Scindhees, Beloochees, Pathans, and Afghans had their representatives in this great throng. As we neared the bridge of boats across the Sutlej, I found that a hurried quarantine had been set up on the spot. Only the sick or dying and bearers of corpses were detained, however; a few questions were asked of the remainder, and ultimately they were allowed to cross; but driving on at speed, I reached Jullundur in the morning, only to find that the pilgrims had been denied admittance to the town. A camp had been formed without the city, to which the pilgrims had to go, unless they preferred to straggle on along the roads, dropping and dying by the way; and the villagers throughout the country had risen on the wretched people, to prevent them returning to their homes.
It is not strange that the government of India should lately have turned its attention to the regulation or suppression of these fairs, for the city-dwelling people of North India will not continue long to tolerate enormous gatherings at the commencement of the hot weather, by which the lives of thousands must ultimately be lost. At Hurdwar, at Juggernauth, and at many other holy spots, hundreds of thousands—millions, not unfrequently—are collected yearly from all parts of India. Great princes come down traveling slowly from their capitals with trains of troops and followers so long that they often take a day or more to pass a given spot. The Maharajah of Cashmere‘s camp between Kalka and Umbala occupied when I saw it more space than that of Aldershot. Camels, women, sutlers without count, follow in the train, so that a body of five thousand men is multiplied until it occupies the space and requires the equipments of a vast army. A huge multitude of cultivators, of princes, of fakeers, and of roisterers met for the excitement and the pleasures of the camp is gathered about the holy spot. There is religion, and there is trade; indeed, the religious pilgrims are for the most part shrewd traders, bent on making a good profit from their visit to the fair.