Kuhn Brahman women are married with diffi culty, and generally to aged men. In 1868, there were 11 Kuhns in Hoogly and 1 in Bardwan, each of whom had contracted 50 to 80 marriages • 24 in Hoogly and 12 in Bardwan, who had contracted from 20 to 50 marriages ; and 48 in Hoogly and 20 in Bardwan, who had contracted between 10 and 20 marriages. Kulinism is thus a great polygamic institution, and a few women have become prostitute's. In 18G7 the abolition of this polygamy was contemplated, and will doubtless be carried out. Kulin marriages are sought after by the relations of the females, to keep up the honour of their families ; and the children of these marriages invariably remain with their mothers, and are maintained by the relations of the females. In seine cases a Kuhn father does not know his own children.
Women unmarried.—It is not possible to learn from the legends of India all the marriage customs formerly prevailing in it. Several of its numerous races, from the most ancient times, have kept themselves distinct from each other, and the evidence of the Mahabharata, of the Ramayana, the Institutes of Manu, the Puranas, and the Vedas can only be accepted as relating to portions of the inhabitants. When we read that in the famous Indian city of Vesali, marriage was forbidden, and high rank attached to the lady who held office as chief of the courtesans,' such must be regarded as an exceptional or local condition, of which, even yet, in British India, there is an instance in a town in North Canara, in the Peninsula. It is stated that when Sakya Muni in his old age visited Vesali, he was lodged in a garden belonging to the chief of the courtesans, who drove out to visit him, attended by her suite in stately carriages. Having approached and bowed down, she took her seat on one side of him, and listened to a discourse on Dharma. . . . On re-entering the town she met the rulers of Vesali, gorgeously apparelled, but their equipages made way for her. They asked her to resign to them the honour of entertaining Sakya Muni, but she refused, and the great man himself, when solicited by the rulers in person, also refused to break his en gagements with the lady. This custom, of the temple dancing-girls advancing to meet a great man, is still prevalent, and they show this honour alike to a governor or a bishop. Until recently, the Deva-dasa, or slaves of the Idols, were the only educated Hindu women in India. All the great
Hindu temples have bands of the Deva-dasa, who follow their trade without public shame; and a woman born of, or adopted by, one of the temple slave women is not held to pursue a shameless vocation, though other women who have fallen from good repute are esteemed disgraceful. The explanation of this is that every Hindu, according to the Institutes of Mann, is pure in his or her own vocation, and the Deva-dasa continue the old custom of the country, under solemn religious sanction. Caste women, on the contrary, who have given way to lawless inclinations, have out raged public feelings, have probably broken their marriage vows, and brought disgrace on their families. At the present day, the Hindu weaver races near Chingleput, 35 miles from Madras, devote the eldest daughter to the temple, and all classes of Hindus, in time of trouble or in hope of offspring, vow their girls to the temples.
Polyandry now prevails in Tibet, Is common in the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan regions adjoining Tibet ; in the valley of Kashmir, in Spiti, in Ladakh, in Kishtwar, in Sirmor, in the Siwalik range, in Khassya ; there are unmistakeable traces of its existence, till recently, in Garhwal, Sylhet, and Cachar ; and it is still prevalent among the Toda of the Neilgherry Hills, the Coorg, the Maleala Sudra, and other castes of Malabar, Canara, and Travancore ; also in Ceylon amongst the Kandyan race, and farther east, is an ancient though now almost superseded custom ; in New Zealand, in one or two of the Pacific Islands, and in the Aleutian Islands ; also to the west and north of the Aleutian, among the Koryak to the north of the Okotsk Sea ; and, crossing the Russian empire to the west side, we find polyandry among the Saporogian Kazak. It is also found in several parts of Africa, and, according to Humboldt, it is prevalent in America among the tribes on the Orinoco, and he vouched for its former prevalence in Laucerota, one of the Canary Islands. But the forms in which it has been followed have varied. Cesar found it in Britain; as it exists in Tibet and in the Western Himalaya, and Coorg and Kandy, it is limited to brothers. The restricted form known to the Jews and early Hindus, as noticed in Ruth and Maim, in which only the childless fell to the brother, is now not heard of.