The Pariahs of Travancore are a strongly-built and bold race. They live in separate hamlets, and eat the flesh of dead cattle, tigers, etc. As with the Sudras, nephews are the heirs. Their girls are married when very young—as a mere form—by their cousins, but when grown up they are selected by others, who give cloth. Instances occur among them both of polygamy and poly andry.
A native writer, G. E. Varmman, says, ' The Muttathu marry females of their own caste ; but they only perform a ceremony, while Brahmans cohabit with them, and beget children. Should men of their own caste dare to approach them, it is like incest with a mother,—there is no atonement possible for them,—and such progeny are sacrilegious.' Among these polyandric races, property is by the women. Colonel Yule says that this remarkable custom of inheritance exists, or has existed, among the aborigines of Hispaniola and tribes New Granada and Bogota ; among Negro tribes of the Niger; among certain sections of the Malays of Sumatra ; in the royal family of Tiperah, and among the Kasias of the Sylhet mountains (both east of Bengal) ; in a district of Ceylon adjoining Bintenne ; in Madagascar ; in the Fiji Islands ; and among the Hurons and Natchez of North America.
In ancient India, the position of the Hindu wife was far more honourable than it is in the India of the present day ; and against this de gradation of the sex, the Hindu marriage cere monies, which have descended from bygone ages, make their constant protest, for in them the woman is recognised as the first and greatest blessing the gods granted to man. A Hindu poet has said— ' Woman is man's better half ; Woman is man's bosom friend ; Woman is redemption's source.' Hindus of Bengal say that the good fortune of a husband depends on that of the wife, hence a woman is an emblem of Lakshmi or Luckee. Girls are taught to offer prayers to all the gods for the gift of a good husband ; but in Bengal, Siva and his wife Durga receive the chief invo cations, because of Siva's fidelity to his spouse, Krishna being avoided because of his association with the Gopin milkmaids of Bindraban.
The whole spirit of the Hindu ritual is opposed to polygamy, but inculcates firm and undeviating allegiance to each other on the part of both husband and wife.
Age.—A Brahman girl who grows up without being married, loses her caste. The duty of choosing a husband belongs to the girl's father ; but should he be dead, it devolves in succession upon the paternal grandfather, brother, paternal uncle, male paternal cousins, and lastly upon her mother. If these omit to perform their duty till after the girl has reached the age of eight, she may choose for herself. She can only marry with those of her own caste, and the preferenee,.should be given to the sons of her mother's brbther or of her father's sister. It would be considered a dreadful sin to marry the sons of father's brother or of the mother's sister.
It is a duty imperatively enjoined by the Shas tras upon the parents or other relatives, and even friends, to see that a girl does not remain un married. In extreme cases people have to obey the letter of the law, by formally marrying to an Ashvattba tree (Ficus religiosa), a girl who, after all efforts, fails to secure a human husband. The artisan goldsmith race deem it so sacred a com mand to marry their daughters in infancy, that if permitted to grow up unmarried, the families say that it would be a duty to drown themselves. And all Brahman girls ought to be married and taken to their husbands' homes before they leave girlhood.
In all classes of the community there is a general predilection in favour of early marriages both of sons and daughters. Hindu mothers wish to see their sons married soon. If a son of a well-to-do Hindu grow up unmarried, the fact is considered as a stigma on the family, and rumours begin to be circulated against the health or constitution' of the boy. A man of good family is showered with offers of a bride for his son ; but the age for lads has been increasing in the Presidency towns since the British introduced the education tests for employment, and fathers of girls strive to obtain educated husbands for their daughters. At the 1881 census of British India, out of a total of 123,949,970 females, there were of married, 2,325,688 under 9, 5,616,460 from 10 to 14 years old ; and of these respective periods of life, 78,976 and 207,388 were already widows. The widows between 15 and 24 years of age numbered 1,134,705.