Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.620

c7.620

To-day widow marriage—the widow proper or the bride whose husband died at the very beginning of the conjugal life—is indeed allowed by the English law of 1856; but it is so repugnant to the basic principles of the higher castes that e. g. among the Lohars and Mālis of Surat a bachelor is allowed to marry a "widow" duly after his symbolic marriage with a Sami tree or a cotton puppet so that he too may thereby be stamped as a widower; among the Jats of Ajmere he who marries a widow must make good to the family of the deceased husband the cost of his marriage and among many castes in Bombay, the widow may marry only at night or has to come out of her parents' house by the back door, etc. ² On the whole, there are evidences in the enormous materials in the description of customs contained in the Bombay Gazetteer that among the Brahmans and in almost all the higher castes the widow marriage is absolutely forbidden and takes place only among the lower castes.