Behramji Malabari

“ A man being strictly forbidden to marry out of caste, and eligible girls being very few, he has to pass the best years of his life in low intrigues for the acquirement of money and the gratification of brute passions. He is nearly a wreck at the time of his marriage, and makes an indifferent guardian for what is his exclusively. After a few years of the marital foolery, the husband either dies or is quietly removed. And then the young widow, used to sin, breaks out into open profligacy, undermining the morals of all who come in contact with her. ”

“ Let us begin with the beginning—birth. The birth of a child is, of course, an event in the family. Want of issue is felt as a curse and a reproach by the wife as well as the husband. No Hindu can enter Swarga, his heaven who does not leave a son and heir in the world to perform the post mortem ceremony named Shrádha. The Parsi is not quite free from this superstition. When conjugal life is unblessed with issue, a thousand means are tried by the poor wife. She is not an honoured wife before she becomes a mother. She appeals to gods and goddesses without number to grant her prayer. ”

“ Too much of cousin-marriage has given us not a few ourang-outangs in physique as well as in intellect.
The Parsi is a monogamist; not so the Hindu and the Mahomedan. Polygamy obtains amongst the very highest circles or the very lowest.
A friend of mine has a Dhobi (a washerman) , a low class Hindu, who has six wives. Being asked one day what a poor man like him could do with so many costly luxuries, the man explained, with a wicked leer, that he had originally married only one wife, of his own caste, that she was his queen-wife, and she attended to his personal wants. ”

“ An odd marriage is not a rarity among Parsis, too, as I have said—it may be odd in various ways. Here are the experiences—of a "mixed" character—of my friend Ookerji, confided to me as a friend. Any honest Parsi can vouch for the facts, though I very much doubt if any will like to be identified as the "happy" bridegroom or his dear wife's mother!
Last week I was dined by my mother-in-law. Mother-in-law is a well-endowed widow who keeps her own accounts and her own counsels. I hail from Panch Kaliani, a small possession of Nawáb Khudá Bux of Mowlághar. I was an orphan before I was born ”

“ On the other hand, when the wife dies first, leaving a son of say ten years, the father gets for him a bride of thirteen or fifteen. There is a double object in view. He cannot marry again if he is a poor man. He will have sooner or later to bring a wife for the son; so he resorts to this stratagem. Such arrangements are rare, but people know what they are made for. The re-marriage of widows and permission to marry one degree out of caste, would do away with practices the infamy of which attaches to almost all sections of uneducated Hindus. ”

“ And by none is a visit from him so much dreaded as by the Hindu wife. The death of her husband is a crushing blow to her; she cannot recover from its effects. The Hindu widow is doomed to wearing life-long weeds. ”

“ Time flies. Mánkore is now sixteen, her boy-husband is nearing twelve. Mánkore looks older than her age by at least five years. Devchand, her husband, looks nine at most. He is short, dull, consumptive. She is the reverse. But is she not his promised bride? The families now live away from each other; but the wife is informed of her husband's rapid progress, physical and mental. Mánkore is "bursting" with youth and hope; she is already a moogdhá; [7] her season of leafage is over; her wise mother has already disclosed to her enraptured gaze the mysteries of wifehood. ”

“ Amongst the Hindus it is extremely difficult to find suitable husbands in one caste and suitable wives in another.
Marriage among Hindus.
Not only is intermarriage between two castes nearest in customs and rites prohibited, but marriage between cousins of the remotest degree sternly is looked down upon. Such connection is incest according to Hindu law. The rarity of a really happy marriage can be conceived. And still, curious to say, a Hindu marriage seldom turns out unhappy. The credit of this is mainly due to the Hindu woman.
Parsi Marriage. ”

“ Indeed, the widow with grown-up boys does not think she is to be so much pitied as her neighbour who has been left "alone." Of such widows my bold but unhappy heroine, Moghi Thakrani, is a notable instance. ”

“ But unluckily for them, both gave birth to girls. This was a sore disappointment, but it was overcome by the arrangement that the next male birth should wed the promised bride. It was four years before Mrs. Kastur did present her lord with a thing which the midwife declared would be a boy by-and-bye. Unfeigned were the rejoicings thereupon, not somuch at Kastur's house as at Shett Motichand's. Mrs. Moti was wild with joy. "Oh, sister mine, I feel as if I had done it, I so badly want the little rogue, my poor Mánkore (the promised bride) is growing so." ”

“ Suffice to say that the uneducated Hindu wife will stop at no means to get at the desired end. She is at peace when once the prize is secured, no matter how, where, or when.
Boyhood.
Every care and comfort is lavished on the mother expectant. She who was a few months ago the most despised of the family, even less important than the servants, now finds herself real mistress of the house. As the time of trial and triumph approaches, a dinner party is given in her honour, at which, besides some insane rites, the poor creature has to put up with many a rabid joke and ribald song. ”

“ I would not have the heart to wish such a curse to fall upon my deadliest enemies. But we are all alike. After my dedication I went to live with my husband. He was an old man, with many of the infirmities of age—he was deaf and colour blind, for two things, and made dreadful mistakes through jealousy. ”

“ The girl is a heavy responsibility, and parents are always uneasy about her future. They anxiously look out for a suitable match, and as soon as they can they get rid of the dangerous possession. "A girl is best at her father-in-law's," says the native proverb, "as is the elephant at the Rájá's." ”

“ Her grandfather, a very wealthy merchant, looking at the tiny little girl, small enough to make a morsel for man or beast, asked the doctor very plaintively how it was that his grandchildren were so very diminutive and often deformed. The doctor replied, "My dear sir,if you keep up the practice of marrying cousins, I will not be surprised if, ten years hence, you get babies no better than half-formed ourang-outangs!" ”

“ His appearance strikes terror into children, and I was told of a mother that was to be on whom the sight of him had a most disastrous effect. The Parsi waiter is only next in harrowing associations to the Parsi corpse-bearer. There is a subtle sympathy between the two wretches which the student of nature can easily account for.
Death—its Effects on the Living.
In dealing, though very cursorily, with such a solemn subject as life, it would not be well to omit death, the twin-brother of life. Death is not a stranger to us ”

“ And when she sets her heart, or head, or hand, or foot on anything, there is small hope of resistance, you may be sure. Our union was arranged for just after the fury of the 1864—5 share mania had subsided into bankruptcy and suicide. One day father-in-law "was not." So mother-in-law came to Panch Kaliani a woe-begone widow to all appearance, but with small effects of large value hidden in many odd corners of her capacious motherly person. I distinctly remember this visit. My old aunt received her, and a little girl trotting behind her, at the threshold. ”