When seated, the girl is formally given to the husband (Kania-danain, literally spinster-giving) ; a priest blesses some water in a small vessel, and the father of the girl, taking this and his daughter's right hand, places them together in the bridegroom's right hand, saying, I do this, that my father, grand fathers, and great-grandfathers may attain Swarga' (heaven). The bridegroom then rising, and standing before the bride, amidst the deafening din of torn toms, ties round her neck the mangala sutram, a thread coloured with turmeric, to which a golden jewel called Bottu or Tala is attached. Sandal wood paste, perfume, and flowers are presented to the guests, betel-nut is offered to all relatives and friends, and money-presents are made. The married couple receive Asir-vadam (benedictions and congratulations) from the assembly, and as they prostrate themselves at their parents' feet their parents bless them. The prostrations are I also occasionally made at the feet of other near relatives, who likewise bestow a blessing. Amongst the Brahmans, the ceremonials of the marriage are continued for five successive days, and for three days, or one day, or seven days, with other castes. On the fifth or last day, the gods who were brought from Swarga into the bride's home, and have been daily worshipped there, are released. Four earthenware pots, placed beneath the pandal or canopy, are filled with rice highly coloured with turmeric, and a Brahman sitting near, by motions from his hands, affects to feed the located gods (Naiediam), and then to release them. This is the Naka balli, or offering of victims, to the gods of Swarga-loeum. And now the parents of the newly-married couple, as also relatives and friends, interchange presents, and make gifts to the young people. In the evening of that (lay the bridegroom takes his wife home. This is done in a procession, in which parents and relations join, and is treated as a religious ceremony, called Grahapravesam, or house-entering, immediately after which the bride and bridegroom are seated in the middle of the floor, the father of the girl presents them with new clothes, and the relations and friends are feasted. After remaining three days in her husband's home, the girl-wife is taken back to the house of her parents, with whom she lives, making only occasional visits to her hus band's residence, until puberty. On this event her father sends word to her husband, who presents gifts to the bearer of the happy tidings, fixes on an auspicious day to bring his wife home, and intimates the date to his father-in-law. The latter prepares a cot or bed, candlestick, cooking uten sils, chairs, boxes, and other household fittings, also buys new clothes for his daughter, whom they convey to her husband's house for good, and an entertainment is given to all relatives and friends. Her parents remain in the house with their daughter and son-in-law for two or three days, and before taking leave of them they give them some advice for their guidance.
Married Life.—From this time the young wife lives with her husband, in subservience to her mother-in-law or sister-in-law, whichever be the head woman in her new home. As a young thing she cannot' haVe much to say ; but her little ways and tiny talk are at an end, and it is even, on many occasions, considered highly indecorous for her to speak at all. She cannot speak to her husband in the presence of his father or mother or other people, and partly from shamefacedness, partly from fear of them, her husband rarely speaks to his wife in their presence. This intense reserve goes off greatly as they grow older ; but in no instance, perhaps, does the Hindu wife ever attain to the same freedom of speech with her husband as marks the intercourse with the young wife in a Mahomedan family, where they are some times married equally young, and where their innocent prattle is the very life of the household. At home, however long she be a wife, a Hindu woman never cats till her husband finishes his meal; she rises and stands in a respectful attitude if her husband or his parents or brothers enter the house, and at all times addresses them in a low tone of voice, and speaks slowly. And so long as the husband's mother or his sister is the head of the house, the husband communicates his wishes as to what he wants his wife to do, not to her directly, but through his mother or sister. Abroad
from home, the Hindu husbands and wives may at all times be seen walking along the roads, but the wife never presumes to walk at the side of her partner. She is always a pace or so behind, and a little at the side. If they be out on matters of business, the wife continues, all along the road, to prompt her husband as to what he is to say or do, but the instant that the place of business is reached, she falls off to a distance, and never presumes to take any part in the discussion. In a poor family, the wife, as in all countries, has to perform the entire domestic duties of the house hold, but with richer people who keep servants the wife's labours are restricted to superintend ence, attention to her children, sewing, and other female occupations. They are in this social re spect much in the position that Europe was a few hundred years ago ; but there is this difference, that scarcely a Hindu wife is able to read or write, or even permitted to learn. Since the middle of the 19th century, in the presidency towns, a few female schools have been established by the better educated Hindus, who are desirous that the next generation shall receive educated partners in their homes. But in all India, out of a population of nearly 200,000,000 of Hindus, there are not; per haps, in 1883, 3000 girls of the higher Hindu castes under tuition. The younger men are averse to the continuance of the intense restraint hitherto imposed on their homes, and are breaking through it, but these are ahnost solitary exceptions to the vast mass. Brainnan girls are forbidden to be educated at all; and those who urge education on them are opposed by the women themselves, who will exclaim, 'What I would you make us as the educational efforts having only hitherto been directed to such unfortunate sisters, from the fear—and it is shared with many men of the Hindus and Mahomedans—that education may tempt, by giving facilities, to vice. In this they evidence a great ignorance of human nature, a more enlarged knowledge of which would con vince them that only the training of the moral faculties can uproot vice, which, where the evil desire prevails, no restrictions can restrain. The utmost that a Brahman woman learns, are the songs and hymns sung by women in their own houses during marriages and other festivals. The Hindu wife — bred from her childhood in the strictest seclusion, consigned at an early age to the care of a husband of whom she can have previously known little or nothing, and who is often as de pendent upon others as herself—leads a life of mysterious quietude, varied only by the rites of religion and the ordinary events of the family. Of the world around her she knows nothing. All her thoughts and feelings, joys and sorrows, desires and affections, are imprisoned within the little circle of her own household. Her mental faculties are either undeveloped, or wasted upon toys, ornaments, idle tales, family gossip, or similar frivolities. Her moral powers, too, are overlaid by superstition and prejudice. Yet these ladies are the mothers of the rising generation, who are acquiring the language and the literature of Europe, and fondly imagining that its members are as capable of exercising the rights of self-government and self-control as those who have sprung from the free and independent women of the western world, whose mothers in the warlike ages took part in the counsels of their nations, and accompanied their warriors to the field. Hindu wives are only allowed to speak to their nearest relations, fathers, brothers, etc., and are never trusted from home alone. Married women, when at the daily bath, smear their bodies with turmeric, and place on their foreheads the round mark with the red colouring matter from the turmeric ? and, like many other orientals, paint their eyelashes with lamp-black. Married women also wear a bodice. Though their religious books (Shastras) permit the Hindu widow to re-marry, custom, which is more rigorous, forbids it; and once widows, except with a few tribes,—the Jat, the Gujar, and others,—they ever after remain single. See Mar riage Customs.