St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1886-06-19
HINDOO MARRIAGES.
Girls Of Eleven Compelled to Marry Row
Fifteen Years Of Age.

Girls Of Eleven Compelled to Marry Roy
Fifteen Years of Age.
From an article q Hindoo recent,
published it appears that marriage il
the writer's country is managed entirel,
by the parents. Courtship. he says, il
literally unknown in India, and tn,
persons who are united in wedlock re
main perfect strangers to each
till their nuptial day, and often 70.
long period afterward. Every thing i,
settled to suit the fancies or caprices OF
the parents. To the parties chiefly
concerned marriage is pure lottery,
but. fortunately, Hindoo connubial life
is not generally miserable lot, As the
wife is unsurpassed in faithfulness and
devotion to her husband. The highest
age at which a Hindoo girl is married
with rare exceptions-is eleven
years. The bridegroom is in his teens
and his bride has hardly seen ten sum-
mers when they are united for life.
Many girls have been married when
they have barely learned to feed them
selves.
The boy inmate of a Hindoo house.
finds himself betrothed by his fathers or
grandfather command to some girl
perhaps an infant of six or seven wears
old. whom he has not seen; nor does he
see her till at the age of fifteen or
Whereabouts. While he is vet at school
he is sent out to fetch her home to his
mothers or grandmother's zenana.
There the child-wife takes the lowest
place, and becomes at once the toy and
slave of all the women. She has tC
learn her domestic duties under the
strict eye of her mother-in-law. and
drudges on; unless indeed, Gas is gen
orally the case,) there is a widow in
the family to have all the work hcapad
upon her; for a Hindoo widow is the
cursed of gods and men. However,
even if this be the case, the child-wife
must learn to do her work, which is
often mental. and must absolutely obey
her mother-in-law. The husband and
wife pass their lives in two almost en-
tirely different tracks, and are brought
up in ideas and associations widely
different from each other. Beginning
rs wife at SO early an age, and enter
ing by the door of marriage GER
emonies the little girl passes from
infancy into the duties and trial of ma
ture life, or at any rate into the seclu-
sion and Imprisonment which are the
grave of childhood. This dreary life
doom is appalling and most incon-
ceivable to English readers. There is
no divorce in the Hindoo law; and.
even when she is cruelty treated or
neglected, the Hindoo wife
patiently submits. Still, the only
thought occupying her mind is the
welfare of her husband, whose wrongs
md injustices she religiously forgives.
Yet this cruel treatment from her
husband is preferable to widowhood.
The Hindoo widow is never allowed to
marry again. She has no one on
whom to rely; she is subject to unkind-
less from every one, and is liable to
De driven to despair. She has to put
IN the plainest dress, to live only on
and fruits, frequently to alb
tain from all food, to use no articles |
# luxury. She is expected to harbor
10 cheerful thoughts-to pass her life |
within the four walls of the
enana, with grief for her only COM
'anion. Thus the widow drags through
er wretched life till welcome death
ONES and relieves her. 1t oft
N happens that a Hindoo wife
oses her husband soon after
marriage; and then she is initiated
1to the horrors of widows life ere
he has passed her girlhood. An old
ian of sixty will not scruple to marry
girl of eight, though he knows that
he will be an outcast in his house all
er life after she has been deprived of
er husband. Out of the total popula-
on of India there must at least be six
lillions of women suffering in this
ay. The last census of Calcutta shows
lat there are tifty-five thousand widows
that city.
The more enlightened natives of India
e strongly in favor of the abolition of
FAINT marriage and the introduction
widow marriage; but the enlight-
led are very few, and custom is ON
potent in that land. The only inn
'ovement that has taken place in
spect to marriage is among the Brah-
os. the new theistic body in India,
no do not marry their girls before
ey attain their fourteenth year. and
no have also introduced the marriage :
widows. But their head, the late
.boo keshub Chunder Sen, married
S daughter when she was only lit. {
over thirteen years of age to the {
aharajah of Cooch Behar. For this I
each of faith he was severely blamed G
all his educated countrymen, and a
e whole of the native press turned {
ainst him.-St. James Gazette. t