Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s6.8.1

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though eight centuries have separated the two grand subdivisions of the Guhilots, and the younger, the Sesodia, has superseded the elder, the Aharya, each ruling distinct States, a marriage between any of the branches would be deemed incestuous: the Sesodia is yet brother to the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.