Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s6.8

Language: English

v2.c27.s6.8.1

Infanticide.—Although religion nowhere authorizes this barbarity, the laws which regulate marriage amongst the Rajputs powerfully promote infanticide. Not only is intermarriage prohibited between families of the same clan (*khanp*), but between those of the same tribe (*got*); and though centuries may have intervened since their separation, and branches thus transplanted may have lost their original patronymic, they can never be regrafted on the original stem: for instance, though eight centuries have separated the two grand subdivisions of the Guhilots, and the younger, the Sesodia, has superseded the elder, the Aharya, each ruling distinct States, a marriage between any of the branches would be deemed incestuous: the Sesodia is yet brother to the Aharya, and regards every female of the race as his sister. Every tribe has therefore to look abroad, to a race distinct from its own, for suitors for the females. Foreign war, international feuds, or other calamities affect tribes the most remote from each other; nor can war or famine thin the clans of Marwar, without diminishing the female population of Amber: thus both suffer in a twofold degree. Many virtuous and humane princes have endeavoured to check or mitigate an evil, in the eradication of which every parental feeling would co-operate. Sumptuary edicts alone can control it; and the Rajputs were never sufficiently enamoured of despotism to permit it to rule within their private dwellings.

v2.c27.s6.8.2

The plan proposed, and in some degree followed by the great Jai Singh of Amber, might with caution be pursued, and with great probability of success. He submitted to the prince of every Rajput State a decree, which was laid before a convocation of their respective vassals, in which he regulated the *daeja* or dower, and other marriage expenditure, with reference to the property of the vassal, limiting it to one year's income of the estate. This plan was, however, frustrated by the vanity of the Chondawat of Salumbar, who expended on the marriage of his daughter a sum even greater than his sovereign could have afforded; and to have his name blazoned by the bards and genealogists, he sacrificed the beneficent views of one of the wisest of the Rajput race. Until vanity suffers itself to be controlled, and the aristocratic Rajput submit to republican simplicity,¹ the evils arising from nuptial profusion will not cease. Unfortunately, those who could check it find their interest in stimulating it, namely, the whole class of Mangtas [638] (mendicants), bards, minstrels, jugglers, Brahmans who assemble on these occasions, and pour forth their epithalamiums in praise of the virtue of liberality. The Bardais are the grand recorders of fame, and the volume of precedent is always recurred to, in citing the liberality of former chiefs;

v2.c27.s6.8.3

while the dread of their satire (visarva, literally ‘poison’)² shuts the eyes of the chiefs to consequences, and they are only anxious to maintain the reputation of their ancestors, though fraught with future ruin. “The Dahima emptied his coffers” (says Chand, the pole-star of the Rajputs) “on the marriage of his daughter with Prithiraj; but he filled them with the praises of mankind.” The same bard retails every article of these daejas or ‘dowers,’ which thus become precedents for future ages; and the “lakh pasarna,”³ then established for the chief bardai, has become a model to posterity. Even now the Rana of Udaipur, in his season of poverty, at the recent marriage of his daughters bestowed “the gift of a lakh” on the chief bard; though the articles of gold, horses, clothes, etc., were included in the estimate, and at an undue valuation, which rendered the gift not quite so precious as in the days of the Chauhan. Were bonds taken from all the feudal chiefs, and a penal clause inserted, of forfeiture of their fief by all who exceeded a fixed nuptial expenditure, the axe would be laid to the root, the evil would be checked, and the heart of many a mother (and we may add father) be gladdened, by preserving at once the point of honour and their child.

v2.c27.s6.8.4

When ignorance declaims against the gratuitous love of murder amongst these brave men, our contempt is excited equally by its short-sighted conclusions, and the affected philanthropy which overlooks all remedy but the “sic volo.” Sir John Shore,⁴ when acting on the suggestions of the benevolent Duncan for the suppression of this practice amongst the Rajkumars, judged more wisely as a politician, and more charitably in his estimate of human motives. “A prohibition,” says he, “enforced by the denunciation of the severest temporal penalties, would have had little efficacy in abolishing a custom which existed in opposition to the feelings of humanity and natural affection”; but “the sanction of that religion which the Rajkumars professed was appealed to in aid of the ordinances of civil authority; and an engagement binding themselves to desist from the barbarous practice was prepared, and circulated for signature amongst the Rajkumars.” It may well be doubted how far this influence could extend, when the root of the evil [639] remained untouched, though not unseen, as the philanthropic Duncan pointed out in the confession of the Rajkumars: “all unequivocally admitted it, but all did not fully acknowledge its atrocity;

v2.c27.s6.8.5

and the only reason they assigned for the inhuman practice was the great expense of procuring suitable matches for their daughters, if they allowed them to grow up.” The Rajkumar is one of the Chauhan sakha, chief of the Agnikulas, and in proportion to its high and well-deserved pretensions on the score of honour, it has more infanticides than any other of the “thirty-six royal races.” Amongst those of this race out of the pale of feudalism, and subjected to powers not Rajput, the practice is fourfold greater, from the increased pressure of the cause which gave it birth, and the difficulty of establishing their daughters in wedlock. Raja Jai Singh’s enactment went far to remedy this. Conjoin his plan with Mr. Duncan’s, provide dowers, and infanticide will cease. It is only by removing the cause that the consequences can be averted.¹