Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.586

c7.586

At the present day child-marriage is the standing custom particularly in all the castes attached to Brahmanism; it has, however, spread among the Muhammadans too from among them. Thus according to the census of 1891, in the Punjab¹ out of 10,000 girls of below ten years of age, 477 were married among the Hindus and 186 among the Muhammadans. The bride goes to live with her husband (mukhlava) a few years after the celebration of the marriage ceremony when she attains puberty. In the North-Western Provinces and Oudh², girls are often married shortly after birth; of every 10,000 girls of 0-4 years of age, 63 are married; of the same number of girls in 5-9 years of age 999 are married and when of the age of 10-14, almost 9/10 of the whole female population get married. Yet the ceremony of taking the bride to the husband's house—here called gauna—takes place mostly 3 to 7 years after the marriage with the attainment of puberty. In north Bengal the average age of marriage of Hindu girls is 11 1/2, in west Bengal 10 1/2, while 6.78 and 11.54 p.c. respectively are less than 10 years of age at the time of marriage.³ The "second marriage," called garbhādhāna or punarvivāha by the Brahmans, takes place at the time of the attainment of puberty.⁴