Muslim Slave System in Medieval India c16.46

c16.46

But except in exceptional cases, where the maids beauty and blandishments so excited the jealousy of the mistress that she treated her severely, a slave girls life was not of unmitigated suffering. In this scenario, the *bandis* were both maids and companions of their mistresses. The mistress in distress poured out her heart to her slave girl and the maid sought the advice of the former regarding her problems. Young and beautiful girls, whether ladies or maids, did wish to be married. And marriage was not shut out for either. A slave girl could be married with the permission of the master. If the master liked a maid, he just took her as his own wife.⁷⁸ Slave girls could be easily swapped by admiring masters. Prince Aurangzeb readily gave his concubine Chhatar Bai in exchange for Hira Bai with whom he had fallen passionately in love.⁷⁹ Begums like Mumtaz Mahall and Nur Jahan married off a large number of slave girls to deserving men.⁸⁰ But all were not so lucky and many of the slave girls had to wait in vain for matrimony. Manucci writes that some of them suffered from insomnia, hallucinations and hysteria, and marriage brought them back to perfect health.⁸¹ Manucci helped many maids to marry.