The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-07-05
BY HAYDEN CHURCH

are quite young children, three-ouarters of the bachelors being under 15 years of age, while somewhat larger proportion of the spinters are under To- Only one bachelor in 24 is over 30, and only one spinster in IA is over 15. This. to us amaz- ing state of things, Is due to the fact in India marriage is not looked upon as a luxury, but as an absolute necessity for man and woman alike. According to h. dian belief every man must marry in or der oheget a who will perform his funeral rites and thus ''rescue his soul from hell" While in the case of girl 1t is incumbent on her parents to give her in marriage at an age when most girls in civilized countries are still at their lesson books. Failure to do so is punished with social ostracism in this world and hell fire in the next. It would be hard to illustrate the popular feeling on this subject better than by quoting from letter setting forth his claims to a title which was gritten by an Indian a title which was written by an Indian He says 'I managed to accomplish the marriage of the Rajah's sister, who was then 20 years old, and great disgrace to the state"
 In many parts of India, especially among the Hindus and Panthans, the comparative scarcity of women was found to be out of all proportion to the number of men. this being explained by the terrible extent to which, in spite of stringent laws prohibiting it, the slaughter of girl babies is still carried on. Up to
 
 fants were killed at birth. Usually they were drowned in milk. or poisoned with ''bhang," or by a preparation of opium smeared on the mothers breast
 Others were suffocated, or killed by pouring ice cold water over their heads while some were allowed to die a cruel, lingering death. Today, among the Khatris, the Rajputs, the Jats and all classes of the Sikhs, girl babies are neglected to such an extent as to amount to deliberate murder. In Gam jam, for instance, villages were found by British officials that did not con tain single female child.
 The reason for this terrible slaughter of the innocents are many and various. In the majority cases however. the parents are inspired by motives of economy, girls being sacrificed to avoid the necessity, in future. of buying hus- bands for them. For, while in some Indian districts, a "bride-price" Is paid 1t is usually the husband that has to be purchased by the parents of the bride be. and husbands are steadily going up The bridegroom price, it seems, is now affected largely by the educational qualifications of the poten- tial lord. A Kayastha graduate In Bengal usually fetches from 800 to 1000 rupes, or from s165 to s33o, and there have been cases where as much as 1O, 900 rupees, or s3500 has been paid. And even in districts where the bride is usually bought. the parents of a girl are sometimes willing to pay for a bridegroom who has captured a few scholastic laurels.
 Different queer superstitions, too, are partly responsible for the slaughter of girl babies. One tribe. called the Khonds, who either murder or neglect their female offspring, are influenced by the belief that the souls return to human form In the same family, but that they do so only If the naming cer- emony on the seventh day after birth has been performed Infants dying before that ceremony do not return. So as the Khonds, like the other natives of India, ardently desire male off, spring, this belief Is a powerful in- ducement to the destruction of female infants, as means of reducing the number of female souls which might be reborn in the family.
 In India, there are no fewer than 9,412,642 girls of under 16 who are wives, and 302,425 under the age of 6 who also have entered the married state! The astounding early age at which girls are married there is ac- counted for by the census taken by pointing out that astrologers indicate certain seasons, occurring generally once in 10 or 12 years, as especially suspicious for marriage, and when thesa come round every possible un-