Observations on the Mussulmauns of India

LETTER XIII

Plu­ral­ity of wives.--Mahu­mud's mo­tive for per­mit­ting this priv­ilege.--State of so­ci­ety at the com­mence­ment of the Prophet's mis­sion.--His in­junc­tions re­spect­ing mar­riage.--Par­ents in­vari­ably de­ter­mine on the se­lec­tion of a hus­band.--First mar­riages at­tend­ed by a pub­lic cer­emo­ny.--The first wife takes prece­dence of all oth­ers.--Gen­eros­ity of de­po­si­tion evinced by the Mus­sul­maun ladies.--Di­vorces ob­tained un­der cer­tain re­stric­tions.--Pe­ri­od of sol­em­niz­ing mar­riage.--Method adopt­ed in choos­ing a hus­band or wife.--Over­tures and con­tracts of mar­riage, how reg­ulat­ed.--Mug­ga­nee, the first con­tract.--Dress of the bride elect on this oc­ca­sion.--The cer­emonies de­scribed as wit­nessed.--Re­marks on the bride.--Present from the bride­groom on Buck­rah Eade.

The Mus­sul­mauns have per­mis­sion from their Law­giv­er to be plu­ral­ists in wives, as well as the Is­raelites of old.[1] Mahu­mud's mo­tive for re­strict­ing the num­ber of wives each man might law­ful­ly mar­ry, was, say his bi­og­ra­phers, for the pur­pose of re­form­ing the then ex­ist­ing state of so­ci­ety, and cor­rect­ing abus­es of long stand­ing amongst the Ara­bi­ans.

My au­thor­ity tells me, that at the pe­ri­od of Mahu­mud's com­menc­ing his mis­sion, the Ara­bi­ans were a most aban­doned and dis­so­lute peo­ple, guilty of ev­ery ex­cess that can de­base the char­ac­ter of man: drunk­ards, prof­li­gate, and over­bear­ing bar­bar­ians, both in prin­ci­ple and ac­tion. Mahu­mud is said un­var­ied­ly to have man­ifest­ed kind­ly feel­ings to­wards the weak­er sex, who, he con­sid­ered, were in­tend­ed to be the com­pan­ion and so­lace of man, and not the slave of his un­govern­able sen­su­al­ity or caprice; he set the best pos­si­ble ex­am­ple in his own do­mes­tic cir­cle, and in­sti­tut­ed such laws as were then need­ed to re­strain vice and pro­mote the hap­pi­ness of those Ara­bi­ans who had re­ceived him as a Prophet. He for­bade all kinds of fer­ment­ed liquors, which were then in com­mon use; and to the fre­quent in­tox­ica­tion of the men, were at­tribut­ed their vi­cious habits, base pur­suits, and un­man­ly cru­el­ty to the poor fe­males. Mahu­mud's code of laws re­lat­ing to mar­riage re­strict­ed them to a lim­it­ed num­ber of wives; for at that pe­ri­od they all pos­sessed crowd­ed harems, many of the in­hab­itants of which were the vic­tims of their reck­less per­se­cu­tion; young fe­males torn from the bo­som of their fam­ilies and im­mured in the vilest state of bondage, to be cast out up­on the wide world to star­va­tion and mis­ery, when­ev­er the base mas­ter of the house or tent de­sired to make room for a fresh sup­ply, of­ten the spoils of his preda­to­ry ex­cur­sions.

By the laws of Mahu­mud his fol­low­ers are re­strained from con­cu­bi­nage; they are equal­ly re­strict­ed from forced mar­riages. The num­ber of their wives must be reg­ulat­ed by their means of sup­port­ing them, the law strict­ly for­bid­ding ne­glect, or un­kind treat­ment of any one of the num­ber his fol­low­ers may deem it con­ve­nient to mar­ry.

At the pe­ri­od when Mahu­mud is­sued these nec­es­sary laws for the se­cu­ri­ty of fe­male com­fort and the moral habits of the males, there ex­ist­ed a prac­tice with the Arabs of forc­ing young wom­en to mar­ry against their in­cli­na­tion, adding, year by year, to the many wretched crea­tures doomed, for a time, to all the mis­eries of a crowd­ed hut; and at last, when tired of their per­sons or un­able to pro­vide them with sus­te­nance, turn­ing them adrift with­out a home, a friend, or a meal. To the present day the law against forced mar­riages is revered, and no mar­riage con­tract can be deemed law­ful with­out the nec­es­sary form of in­quiry by the Maul­vee, who, in the pres­ence of wit­ness­es, de­mands of the young la­dy, 'whether the con­tract is by her own free will and con­sent?' This, how­ev­er, I am dis­posed to think, in the present age, is lit­tle else than a mere form of 'ful­fill­ing the law' since the en­gage­ment is made by the par­ents of both par­ties, the young cou­ple be­ing pas­sive sub­jects to the parental ar­range­ment, for their ben­efit as they are as­sured. The young la­dy, from her rigid seclu­sion, has no pri­or at­tach­ment, and she is ed­ucat­ed to be 'obe­di­ent to her hus­band'. She is taught from her ear­li­est youth to look for­ward to such match as her kind par­ents may think prop­er to pro­vide for her; and, there­fore, can have no ob­jec­tion to ac­cept­ing the hus­band se­lect­ed for her by them. The par­ents, lov­ing their daugh­ter, and aware of the re­spon­si­bil­ity rest­ing on them, are cau­tious in se­lect­ing for their girls suit­able hus­bands, ac­cord­ing to their par­tic­ular view of the el­igi­bil­ity of the suit­or.

The first mar­riage of a Mus­sul­maun is the on­ly one where a pub­lic dis­play of the cer­emo­ny is deemed nec­es­sary, and the first wife is al­ways con­sid­ered the head of his fe­male es­tab­lish­ment. Al­though he may be the hus­band of many wives in the course of time, and some of them prove greater favourites, yet the first wife takes prece­dence in all mat­ters where dig­ni­ty is to be pre­served. And when the sev­er­al wives meet--each have sep­arate habi­ta­tions if pos­si­ble--all the rest pay to the first wife that def­er­ence which su­pe­ri­or­ity ex­acts from in­fe­ri­ors; not on­ly do the sec­ondary wives pay this re­spect to the first, but the whole cir­cle of re­la­tions and friends make the same dis­tinc­tion, as a mat­ter of course; for the first wife takes prece­dence in ev­ery way.

Should the first wife for­tu­nate­ly present her hus­band with a son, he is the undis­put­ed heir; but the chil­dren of ev­ery sub­se­quent wife are equals in the fa­ther's es­ti­ma­tion. Should the hus­band be dis­so­lute and have off­spring by con­cu­bines--which is not very com­mon,--those chil­dren are re­mem­bered and pro­vid­ed for in the dis­tri­bu­tion of his prop­er­ty; and, as very of­ten oc­curs, they are cher­ished by the wives with near­ly as much care as their own chil­dren; but il­le­git­imate off­spring very sel­dom mar­ry in the same rank their fa­ther held in so­ci­ety.

The lat­itude al­lowed by 'the law' pre­serves the many-​wived Mus­sul­maun from the world's cen­sure; and his con­science rests un­ac­cused when he adds to his num­bers, if he can­not re­proach him­self with hav­ing ne­glect­ed or un­kind­ly treat­ed any of the num­ber bound to him, or their chil­dren. But the priv­ilege is not al­ways in­dulged in by the Mus­sul­mauns; much de­pends on cir­cum­stances, and more on the man's dis­po­si­tion. If it be the hap­py lot of a kind-​heart­ed, good man to be mar­ried to a wom­an of as­sim­ilat­ing mind, pos­sess­ing the need­ful req­ui­sites to ren­der home agree­able, and a prospect of an in­creas­ing fam­ily, then the hus­band has no mo­tive to draw him in­to fur­ther en­gage­ments, and he is sat­is­fied with one wife. Many such men I have known in Hin­doost­aun, par­tic­ular­ly among the Syaads and re­li­gious char­ac­ters, who deem a plu­ral­ity of wives a plague to the pos­ses­sors in pro­por­tion to their num­bers.

The af­flu­ent, the sen­su­al­ist, and the am­bi­tious, are most prone to swell the num­bers in their harem. With some men, who are not high­ly gift­ed in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly, it is es­teemed a mark of gen­til­ity to have sev­er­al wives.

There are some in­stances of re­mark­able gen­eros­ity in the con­duct of good wives (which would hard­ly gain cred­it with fe­males dif­fer­ent­ly ed­ucat­ed), not nec­es­sary to the sub­ject be­fore me; but I may here add to the praise of a good wife among these peo­ple, that she nev­er ut­ters a re­proach, nor gives ev­idence by word or man­ner in her hus­band's pres­ence that she has any cause for re­gret; she re­ceives him with undis­guised plea­sure, al­though she has just be­fore learned that an­oth­er mem­ber has been added to his well-​peo­pled harem. The good and for­bear­ing wife, by this line of con­duct, se­cures to her­self the con­fi­dence of her hus­band; who, feel­ing as­sured that the ami­able wom­an has an in­ter­est in his hap­pi­ness, will con­sult her and take her ad­vice in the do­mes­tic af­fairs of his chil­dren by oth­er wives, and even ar­range by her judg­ment all the set­tle­ments for their mar­riages, &c. He can speak of oth­er wives with­out re­straint,--for she knows he has oth­ers,--and her ed­uca­tion has taught her, that they de­serve her re­spect in pro­por­tion as they con­tribute to her hus­band's hap­pi­ness. The chil­dren of her hus­band are ad­mit­ted at all times and sea­sons, with­out re­straint or prej­udice; she loves them next to her own, be­cause they are her hus­band's. She re­ceives the moth­ers of such chil­dren with­out a shade of jeal­ousy in her man­ner, and de­lights in dis­tin­guish­ing them by favours and presents ac­cord­ing to their sev­er­al mer­its. From this pic­ture of many liv­ing wives in Mus­sul­maun so­ci­ety, it must not be sup­posed I am speak­ing of wom­en with­out at­tach­ment to their hus­bands; on the con­trary, they are per­sons who are re­al­ly sus­cep­ti­ble of pure love, and the gen­eros­ity of their con­duct is one of the ways in which they prove them­selves de­vot­ed to their hus­band's hap­pi­ness. This, they say, was the les­son taught them by their ami­able moth­er, and this is the ex­am­ple they would set for the im­ita­tion of their daugh­ters.

I do not mean to say this is a faith­ful pic­ture of all the fe­males of zeenah­nah life. The mix­ture of good and bad tem­pers or dis­po­si­tions is not con­fined to any class or com­plex­ion of peo­ple, but is to be met with in ev­ery quar­ter of the globe. In gen­er­al, I have ob­served those fe­males of the Mus­sul­maun pop­ula­tion who have any claim to gen­teel life, and whose habits are guid­ed by re­li­gious prin­ci­ples, evince such traits of char­ac­ter as would con­sti­tute the vir­tu­ous and thor­ough­ly obe­di­ent wife in any coun­try; and many, whom I have had the hon­our to know per­son­al­ly, would do cred­it to the most en­light­ened peo­ple in the world.

Should the first wife prove a ter­ma­gant or un­faith­ful--rare oc­cur­rences amongst the in­mates of the harem,--the hus­band has the lib­er­ty of di­vorc­ing her by pay­ing down her stip­ulat­ed dowry. This dowry is an en­gage­ment made by the hus­band on the night of Baar­raat[2] (when the bride­groom is about to take his bride from her par­ents to his own home). On which oc­ca­sion the Maul­vee asks the bride­groom to name the amount of his wife's dowry, in the event of sep­ara­tion; the young man is at lib­er­ty to name any sum he pleas­es. It would not pre­vent the mar­riage if the small­est amount were promised; but he is in the pres­ence of his bride's fam­ily, and with­in her hear­ing al­so, though he has not yet seen her;--it is a crit­ical mo­ment for him, thus sur­round­ed. Be­sides, as he nev­er in­tends to sep­arate from the la­dy, in the strict let­ter of the law, he can­not re­frain from grat­ify­ing those in­ter­est­ed in the hon­our he is about to con­fer by the val­ue of the promised dowry, and, there­fore, he names a very heavy sum, which per­haps his whole gen­er­ation nev­er could have col­lect­ed in their joint lives. This sum would of it­self be a bar­ri­er to di­vorce; but that is not the on­ly ob­ject which in­flu­ences the Mus­sul­maun gen­er­al­ly to waive the di­vorce; it is be­cause they would not pub­lish their own dis­grace, by di­vorc­ing an un­faith­ful or un­du­ti­ful wife.

If the first wife dies, a sec­ond is sought af­ter on the same prin­ci­ple which guid­ed the first--'a su­pe­ri­or to head his house'. In this case there would be the same pub­lic dis­play which marked the first wife's mar­riage; all the mi­nor or sec­ondary wives be­ing in­tro­duced to the zeenah­nah pri­vate­ly; they are in con­se­quence termed Dhol­lie[3] wives, or brought home un­der cov­er.

Many great men ap­pear to be close im­ita­tors of King Solomon, with whose his­to­ry they are per­fect­ly con­ver­sant, for I have heard of the sovereign princes in Hin­doost­aun hav­ing sev­en or eight hun­dred wives at one time in their palaces. This is hearsay re­port on­ly, and I should hope an ex­ag­ger­ation.[4]

The first mar­riage is usu­al­ly sol­em­nized when the youth is eigh­teen, and the young la­dy thir­teen, or four­teen at the most; many are mar­ried at an ear­li­er age, when, in the opin­ion of the par­ents, an el­igi­ble match is to be se­cured. And in some cas­es, where the par­ents on both sides have the union of their chil­dren at heart, they con­tract them at six or sev­en years old, which mar­riage they solemn­ly bind them­selves to ful­fil when the chil­dren have reached a prop­er age; un­der these cir­cum­stances the chil­dren are al­lowed to live in the same house, and of­ten form an at­tach­ment for each oth­er, which ren­ders their union a life of re­al hap­pi­ness.

There are to be found in Mus­sul­maun so­ci­ety par­ents of mer­ce­nary minds, who pre­fer giv­ing their daugh­ters in mar­riage as dhol­lie wives to no­ble­men or men of prop­er­ty, to the prefer­able plan of unit­ing them with a hus­band of their own grade, with whom the girl would most like­ly live with­out a ri­val in the mud-​walled ten­ement; this will ex­plain the fa­cil­ities of­fered to a sovereign or no­ble­man in ex­tend­ing the num­bers of his harem.

Some par­ents ex­cuse them­selves in thus dis­pos­ing of their daugh­ters on the score of pover­ty, and the dif­fi­cul­ty they find in de­fray­ing the ex­pens­es of a wed­ding: this I con­ceive to be one great er­ror in the econ­omy of the Mus­sul­maun peo­ple,--un­nec­es­sary ex­pense in­curred in their mar­riage cer­emonies, which ham­pers them through life in their cir­cum­stances. Par­ents, how­ev­er poor, will not al­low their daugh­ter to be con­veyed from their home, where the pro­ject­ed union is with an equal, with­out a seem­ing­ly need­less pa­rade of mu­sic, and a mar­riage-​por­tion in goods and chat­tels, if they have no for­tune to give be­side; then the ex­pense of pro­vid­ing din­ners for friends to make the event con­spic­uous, and the use­less ar­ti­cles of fin­ery for the girl's per­son, with many oth­er ways of ex­pend­ing mon­ey, to the detri­ment of the par­ents' fi­nances, with­out any very sub­stan­tial ben­efit to the young cou­ple. But this dear­ly-​loved cus­tom can­not be passed over; and if the par­ents find it im­pos­si­ble to meet the pe­cu­niary de­mands of these cer­emonies, the girl has no al­ter­na­tive but to live out her days singly, un­less by an agent's in­flu­ence she is ac­cept­ed as a dhol­lie wife to some man of wealth.

Girls are con­sid­ered to have passed their prime when they num­ber from six­teen to eigh­teen years; even the poor­est peas­ant would ob­ject to a wife of eigh­teen.

There has been the same dif­fi­cul­ty to en­counter in ev­ery age of Mus­sul­maun his­to­ry in Hin­doost­aun; and in the dark­er pe­ri­ods of civ­iliza­tion, the ob­sta­cles to set­tling their daugh­ters to ad­van­tage in­duced the vil­lagers and the un­ed­ucat­ed to fol­low the ex­am­ple of the Ra­jpoots, viz., to de­stroy the greater pro­por­tion of fe­males at their birth. In the present age, this hor­rid cus­tom is nev­er heard of amongst any class­es of the Mus­sul­maun pop­ula­tion[5]; but by the Ra­jpoot Hin­doos it is still prac­tised, as one of their chiefs very late­ly ac­knowl­edged in the pres­ence of a friend of mine. I have of­ten heard Meer Had­jee Shaah de­clare that it was a com­mon oc­cur­rence with­in his rec­ol­lec­tion, among the low­er class­es of the peo­ple in the im­me­di­ate vicin­ity of Lood­eeanah,[6] where he lived when a boy; and that the same prac­tice ex­ist­ed in the Oude ter­ri­to­ry, amongst the peas­antry even at a much lat­er date. One of the Nuwaubs of Oude,--I think Asoof ood Dowlah,--hear­ing with hor­ror of the fre­quent re­cur­rence of this atroc­ity in the re­mote parts of his province, is­sued a procla­ma­tion to his sub­jects, com­mand­ing them to de­sist from the bar­barous cus­tom[7]; and, as an in­duce­ment to the wicked par­ents to pre­serve their fe­male off­spring alive, grants of land were to be award­ed to ev­ery fe­male as a mar­riage-​por­tion on her ar­riv­ing at a prop­er age.

It is gen­er­al­ly to be ob­served in a Mus­sul­maun's fam­ily, even at this day, that the birth of a girl pro­duces a tem­po­rary gloom, whilst the birth of a boy gives rise to a fes­ti­val in the zeenah­nah. Some are wicked enough to say, 'It is more hon­ourable to have sons than daugh­ters', but I be­lieve the re­al cause is the dif­fi­cul­ty to be en­coun­tered in set­tling the lat­ter suit­ably.

The im­por­tant af­fair of fix­ing up­on a de­sir­able match for their sons and daugh­ters is the source of con­stant anx­iety in the fam­ily of ev­ery Mus­sul­maun, from the chil­dren's ear­li­est years to the pe­ri­od of its ac­com­plish­ment.

There is a class of peo­ple who make it the busi­ness of their lives to ne­go­ti­ate mar­riages. Both men and wom­en of this de­scrip­tion are of course in­ge­nious­ly ex­pert in the art of talk­ing, and able to put the best colour­ing on the af­fair they un­der­take; they oc­cu­py ev­ery day of their lives in rov­ing about from house to house, and, as they have al­ways some­thing en­ter­tain­ing to say, they gen­er­al­ly gain easy ad­mit­tance; they make them­selves ac­quaint­ed with the do­mes­tic af­fairs of one fam­ily in or­der to con­vey them to an­oth­er, and so con­tin­ue in their line of gos­sip­ing, un­til the econ­omy of ev­ery per­son's house is fa­mil­iar to all. The fe­male gos­sip in her re­search­es in zeenah­nahs, finds out all the ex­pec­ta­tions a moth­er en­ter­tains for her mar­riage­able sons or daugh­ters, and de­tails what­ev­er she learns in such or such a zeenah­nah, as like­ly to meet the views of her present host­ess. Ev­ery one knows the ob­ject of these vis­its, and if they have any se­cret that the world may not par­tic­ipate in, there is due cau­tion ob­served that it may not tran­spire be­fore this Mrs. Gad-​about.

When in­tel­li­gence is brought, by means of such agen­cy, to the moth­er of a son who hap­pens to be mar­riage­able, that a la­dy of prop­er rank has a daugh­ter to be sought, she con­sults with her hus­band, and fur­ther in­quiries are in­sti­tut­ed amongst their sev­er­al friends, male and fe­male; af­ter due de­lib­er­ation, the con­nex­ion be­ing found de­sir­able, the fa­ther will con­sult an omen be­fore ne­go­ti­ations are com­menced. The omen to de­cide the im­por­tant step is as fol­lows:--Sev­er­al slips of pa­per are cut up, on half the num­ber is writ­ten 'to be', on the oth­er half, 'not to be'; these pa­pers are mixed to­geth­er and placed un­der the prayer-​car­pet. When the good Mus­sul­maun is prepar­ing for his evening Na­maaz he fails not in his de­vo­tions to ask for help and guid­ance in an af­fair of so much im­por­tance to the fa­ther as the hap­pi­ness and well-​be­ing of his son. At the por­tion of the ser­vice when he bows down his head to God, he be­seech­es with much hu­mil­ity, call­ing on the great pow­er and good­ness of God to in­struct and guide him for the best in­ter­est of his child; and then he re­peats a short prayer ex­pres­sive of his re­liance on the wis­dom of God, and his per­fect sub­mis­sion to what­ev­er may be His wise de­cree in this im­por­tant busi­ness. The prayer con­clud­ed, he seats him­self with solemn grav­ity on the prayer-​car­pet, again and again im­plor­ing Di­vine guid­ance, with­out which he is sure noth­ing good can ac­crue: he then draws one slip from un­der his car­pet; if 'to be' is pro­duced, he places it by his left side;--a sec­ond slip is drawn out, should that al­so bear the words 'to be' the busi­ness is so far de­cid­ed. He then of­fers thanks and prais­es to God, con­grat­ulates his wife on the suc­cess­ful is­sue of the omen, and dis­cuss­es those plans which ap­pear most like­ly to fur­ther the prospects of their dear­ly-​loved son. But should the sec­ond and third pa­pers say 'not to be' he is as­sured in his heart it was so de­cid­ed by 'that Wis­dom which can­not err:' to whom he gives praise and glo­ry for all mer­cies re­ceived at His hand: af­ter this no over­ture or ne­go­ti­ation would be lis­tened to by the pi­ous fa­ther from the same quar­ter.[8]

The omen, how­ev­er, prov­ing favourable, the af­fair is de­cid­ed; and in or­der to gain the best pos­si­ble in­for­ma­tion of the re­al dis­po­si­tion of all par­ties con­cerned, a con­fi­den­tial friend is sent to the zeenah­nah of the young la­dy's moth­er to make her own ob­ser­va­tions on what pass­es with­in; and to as­cer­tain, if pos­si­ble, whether the re­port brought by the fe­male agent was true or ex­ag­ger­at­ed; and fi­nal­ly, to learn if their son would be re­ceived or re­ject­ed as a suit­or, pro­vid­ed ad­vances were made.

The fe­male friend re­turns, af­ter a day or two's ab­sence, to the anx­ious par­ents of the youth, and de­tails all she has seen or heard dur­ing her vis­it. The young la­dy may, per­haps, have been seen (this is not al­ways con­ced­ed to such vis­itors), in which case her per­son, her man­ners, her ap­par­ent dis­po­si­tion, the hos­pi­tal­ity and good breed­ing of the moth­er and oth­er mem­bers of the zeenah­nah, are de­scribed; and last­ly, it is hint­ed that, all oth­er things suit­ing, the young la­dy be­ing yet dis­en­gaged, the pro­ject­ed of­fer would not be dis­agree­able to her par­ents.

The fa­ther of the youth then re­solves on send­ing a male agent in due form to ne­go­ti­ate a mar­riage, un­less he hap­pens to be per­son­al­ly ac­quaint­ed with the girl's fa­ther; in which case the la­dy is de­sired to send her fe­male agent on the em­bassy, and the fa­ther of the youth speaks on the sub­ject in the mean­time to the girl's fa­ther.

A very in­ti­mate friend of mine was seek­ing for a suit­able match for her son, and be­ing much in her con­fi­dence, I was ini­ti­at­ed in all the mys­ter­ies and ar­range­ments (ac­cord­ing to Mus­sul­maun rule) of the af­fair pend­ing the mar­riage of her son.

The young la­dy to be sought (wooed we should have it), had been de­scribed as ami­able and pret­ty--ad­van­tages as much es­teemed as her rank;--for­tune she had none worth men­tion­ing, but it was what is termed in In­di­an so­ci­ety a good and equal match. The over­ture was, there­fore, to be made from the youth's fam­ily in the fol­low­ing man­ner:

On a sil­ver tray cov­ered with gold bro­cade and fringed with sil­ver, was laid the youth's pedi­gree, traced by a neat writ­er in the Per­sian char­ac­ter, on rich­ly em­bossed pa­per or­na­ment­ed and em­bla­zoned with gold fig­ures. The youth be­ing a Syaad, his pedi­gree was traced up to Mahu­mud, in both pa­ter­nal and ma­ter­nal lines, and many a hero and Be­gum of their no­ble blood filled up the space from the Prophet down to the youth­ful Meer Mahu­mud, my friend's son.

On the tray, with the pedi­gree, was laid a nuz­za, or of­fer­ing of five gold mo­hurs, and twen­ty-​one (the lucky num­ber) ru­pees; a bro­cad­ed cov­er, fringed with sil­ver, was spread over the whole, and this was con­veyed by the male agent to the young Be­gum's fa­ther. The tray and its con­tents are re­tained for ev­er, if the pro­pos­al is ac­cept­ed: if re­ject­ed, the par­ties re­turn the whole with­out de­lay, which is re­ceived as a tac­it proof that the suit­or is re­ject­ed: no fur­ther ex­pla­na­tion is ev­er giv­en or re­quired.

In the present in­stance the tray was de­tained, and in a few days af­ter a fe­male from their fam­ily was sent to my friend's house to make a gen­er­al scruti­ny of the zeenah­nah and its in­mates. This fe­male was pressed to stay a day or two, and in that time many im­por­tant sub­jects un­der­went dis­cus­sion. The youth was in­tro­duced, and ev­ery­thing ac­cord­ing with the views en­ter­tained by both par­ties, the fa­thers met, and the mar­riage, it was de­cid­ed, should take place with­in a twelve­month, when the young la­dy would have ac­com­plished her thir­teenth year.

'Do you de­cide on hav­ing Mug­ga­nee[9] per­formed?' is the ques­tion pro­posed by the fa­ther of the youth to the fa­ther of the young maid­en. In the present case it was cho­sen, and great were the prepa­ra­tions of my friend to do all pos­si­ble hon­our to the fu­ture bride of her son.

Mug­ga­nee is the first con­tract, by which the par­ties are bound to ful­fil their en­gage­ment at an ap­point­ed time.

The dress for a bride[10] dif­fers in one ma­te­ri­al point from the gen­er­al style of Hin­doost­au­nie cos­tume: a sort of gown is worn, made of sil­ver tis­sue, or some equal­ly ex­pen­sive ar­ti­cle, about the walk­ing length of an En­glish dress; the skirt is open in front, and con­tains about twen­ty breadths of the ma­te­ri­al, a tight body and long sleeves. The whole dress is trimmed very rich­ly with em­broi­dered trim­ming and sil­ver riband; the deput­tah (drap­ery) is made to cor­re­spond. This style of dress is the orig­inal Hin­doo fash­ion, and was worn at the Court of Del­hi for many cen­turies; but of late years it has been used on­ly on mar­riage fes­ti­vals amongst the bet­ter sort of peo­ple in Hin­doost­aun, ex­cept Kings or Nuwaubs send­ing khillauts to fe­males, when this dress, called a jhammah,[11] is in­vari­ably one of the ar­ti­cles.

The cost­ly dress­es for the present Mug­ga­nee my friend pre­pared at a great ex­pense, and with much good taste; to which were added a ru­by ring of great val­ue, large gold ear-​rings, of­fer­ings of mon­ey, the flow­er-​gar­lands for the head, neck, wrists, and an­kles, formed of the sweet-​scent­ed jes­samine; choice con­fec­tionery set out in trays with the pawns and fruits; the whole con­veyed un­der an es­cort of sol­diers and ser­vants with a band of mu­sic, from the res­idence of Meer Mahu­mud to that of his bride elect, ac­com­pa­nied by many friends of the fam­ily. These of­fer­ings from the youth bind the con­tract with the young la­dy, who wears his ring from that day to the end of her life.

The poor­er sort of peo­ple per­form Mug­ga­nee by the youth sim­ply send­ing a ru­pee in a silk band, to be tied on the girl's arm.

Be­ing cu­ri­ous to know the whole busi­ness of a wed­ding cer­emo­ny amongst the Mus­sul­maun peo­ple, I was al­lowed to per­form the part of 'of­fi­ci­at­ing friend' on this oc­ca­sion of cel­ebrat­ing the Mug­ga­nee. The par­ents of the young la­dy hav­ing been con­sult­ed, my vis­it was a source of so­lic­itude to the whole fam­ily, who made ev­ery pos­si­ble prepa­ra­tion to re­ceive me with be­com­ing re­spect; I went just in time to reach the gate at the mo­ment the pa­rade ar­rived. I was hand­ed to the door of the zeenah­nah by the girl's fa­ther, and was soon sur­round­ed by the young mem­bers of the fam­ily, to­geth­er with many la­dy-​vis­itors, slaves, and wom­en-​ser­vants of the es­tab­lish­ment. They had nev­er be­fore seen an En­glish-​wom­an, and the nov­el­ty, I fan­cy, sur­prised the whole group; they ex­am­ined my dress, my com­plex­ion, hair, hands, &c., and looked the won­der they could not ex­press in words. The young Be­gum was not amongst the gaz­ing throng; some pre­lim­inary cus­toms de­tained her be­hind the pur­dah, where it may be sup­posed she en­dured all the agony of sus­pense and cu­rios­ity by her com­pli­ance with the pre­scribed forms.

The la­dy of the man­sion wait­ed my ap­proach to the dul­haun[12] (great hall) with all due eti­quette, stand­ing to re­ceive and em­brace me on my ad­vanc­ing to­wards her. This cer­emo­ny per­formed, I was in­vit­ed to take a seat on the mus­nud-​car­pet with her on the ground; a chair had been pro­vid­ed for me, but I chose to re­spect the la­dy's pref­er­ence, and the seat on the floor suit­ed me for the time with­out much in­con­ve­nience.

Af­ter some time had been passed in con­ver­sa­tion on such sub­jects as suit­ed the taste of the la­dy of the house, I was sur­prised at the ser­vants en­ter­ing with trays, which they placed im­me­di­ate­ly be­fore me, con­tain­ing a full-​dress suit in the cos­tume of Hin­doost­aun. The host­ess told me she had pre­pared this dress for me, and I must con­de­scend to wear it. I would have de­clined the gaudy ar­ray, but one of her friends whis­pered me, 'The cus­tom is of long stand­ing; when the face of a stranger is first seen a dress is al­ways pre­sent­ed; I should dis­please Sum­dun Be­gum by my re­fusal;--be­sides, it would be deemed an ill omen at the Mug­ga­nee of the young Bo­hue[13] Be­gum if I did not put on the Na­tive dress be­fore I saw the face of the bride elect.' These I found to be weighty ar­gu­ments, and felt con­strained to qui­et their ap­pre­hen­sions of ill-​luck by com­pli­ance; I there­fore forced the gold dress and the glit­ter­ing drap­ery over my oth­er clothes, at the ex­pense of some suf­fer­ing from the heat, for it was at the very hottest sea­son of the year, and the dul­haun was crowd­ed with vis­itors.

This im­por­tant point con­ced­ed to them, I was led to a side hall, where the lit­tle girl was seat­ed on her car­pet of rich em­broi­dery, her face rest­ing on her knees in ap­par­ent bash­ful­ness. I could not di­rect­ly as­cer­tain whether she was plain, or pret­ty as the fe­male agent had rep­re­sent­ed. I was al­lowed the priv­ilege of dec­orat­ing the young la­dy with the sweet jes­samine guinahs,[14] and plac­ing the ring on the fore­fin­ger of the right hand; af­ter which, the ear-​rings, the gold-​tis­sue dress, the deput­tah were all in their turn put on, the of­fer­ing of mon­ey pre­sent­ed, and then I had the first em­brace be­fore her moth­er. She looked very pret­ty, just turned twelve. If I could have pre­vailed on her to be cheer­ful, I should have been much grat­ified to have ex­tend­ed my vis­it in her apart­ment, but the poor child seemed ready to sink with timid­ity; and out of com­pas­sion to the dear girl, I hur­ried away from the hall, to re­lieve her from the bur­den my pres­ence seemed to in­flict, the mo­ment I had ac­com­plished my last du­ty, which was to feed her with my own hand, giv­ing her sev­en pieces of sug­ar-​can­dy; sev­en, on this oc­ca­sion, is the lucky num­ber, I pre­sume, as I was par­tic­ular­ly cau­tioned to feed her with ex­act­ly that num­ber of pieces.

Re­turn­ing to the as­sem­bly in the dul­haun, I would have glad­ly tak­en leave; but there was yet one oth­er cus­tom to be ob­served to se­cure a hap­py omen to the young peo­ple's union. Once again seat­ed on the mus­nud with Sum­dun Be­gum,[15] the fe­male slaves en­tered with sher­bet in sil­ver basins. Each per­son tak­ing sher­bet is ex­pect­ed to de­posit gold or sil­ver coins in the tray; the sher­bet-​mon­ey at this house is col­lect­ed for the bride; and when dur­ing the three days' per­for­mance of the mar­riage cer­emo­ny at the bride­groom's house sher­bet is pre­sent­ed to the guests, the mon­ey col­lect­ed there is re­served for him. The pro­duce of the two hous­es is af­ter­wards com­pared, and con­clu­sions drawn as to the great­est por­tion of re­spect paid by the friends on ei­ther side. The poor peo­ple find the sher­bet-​mon­ey a use­ful fund to help them to keep house; but with the rich it is a mere mat­ter to boast of, that so much mon­ey was col­lect­ed in con­se­quence of the num­ber of vis­itors who at­tend­ed the nup­tials.

Af­ter the Mug­ga­nee cer­emo­ny had been per­formed, and be­fore the mar­riage was sol­em­nized, the fes­ti­val of Buck­rah Eade oc­curred;--in the eleventh Let­ter you will find it re­marked, the bride and bride­groom elect then ex­change presents;--my friend was re­solved her son's presents should do hon­our to both hous­es, and the fol­low­ing may give you an idea of an Eade-​gift.

Thir­ty-​five goats and sheep of the finest breed procur­able, which I suc­ceed­ed in hav­ing sent in their nat­ural dress, in­stead of be­ing adorned with gold-​cloth and paint­ed horns: it was, how­ev­er, with some per­sua­sion the fol­ly of this gen­er­al prac­tice was omit­ted in this in­stance.

The guinah or gar­land, of flow­ers on a tray cov­ered with bro­cade. The guinah are sweet-​scent­ed flow­ers with­out stalks, thread­ed in­to gar­lands in many pret­ty ways, with great taste and in­ge­nu­ity, in­ter­mixed with sil­ver ribands; they are formed in­to bracelets, neck­laces, arm­lets, chap­lets for the head, and ban­gles for the legs. There are peo­ple in Luc­know who make the prepar­ing of guinahs a prof­itable busi­ness, as the pop­ula­tion is so ex­ten­sive as to ren­der these flow­er-​or­na­ments ar­ti­cles of great re­quest.

A tray filled with pawns, pre­pared with the usu­al in­gre­di­ents, as lime, cut­tie[16] (a bit­ter gum), be­tel-​nut, to­bac­co, spices, &c.; these pawns are tied up in pack­ets of a tri­an­gu­lar form and cov­ered with enam­elled foil of many bright colours. Sev­er­al trays of ripe fruits of the sea­son, viz., kur­bootahs[17] (shad­dock), ka­booza[18] (mel­ons), un­unas[19] (pine ap­ple), guavers,[20] sher­reefha[21] (cus­tard-​ap­ple), kum­meruck,[22] jar­mun[23] (pur­ple olives), orme[24] (man­go), fal­sah,[25] kirhnee,[26] baer,[27] leechie,[28] orm­peach,[29] carounder,[30] and many oth­er kinds of less re­pute.

Con­fec­tionery and sweet­meats, on trays, in all the va­ri­eties of In­di­an in­ven­tion; a full-​dress suit for the young la­dy; and on a sil­ver tray the youth's nuz­za of five gold mo­hurs, and twen­ty-​one ru­pees.

The Eade of­fer­ing of Meer Mahu­mud was es­cort­ed by ser­vants, sol­diers, and a band of mu­sic; and the young la­dy re­turned a present to the bride­groom elect of thir­ty-​five goats and sheep, and a va­ri­ety of un­dress skull-​caps, sup­posed to be her own work, in span­gles and em­broi­dery. I may state here, that the Na­tives of In­dia nev­er go bare-​head­ed in the house. The tur­ban is al­ways worn in com­pa­ny, what­ev­er may be the in­con­ve­nience from heat; and in pri­vate life, a small skull-​cap, of­ten of plain white muslin, just cov­ers the head. It is con­sid­ered dis­grace­ful in men to ex­pose the head bare; re­mov­ing the tur­ban from the head of an in­di­vid­ual would be deemed as in­sult­ing as pulling a nose in Eu­rope.

What­ev­er Eade or fes­ti­val may oc­cur be­tween the Mug­ga­nee and the fi­nal cel­ebra­tion of nup­tials, presents are al­ways in­ter­changed by the young bride and bride­groom; and with all such ob­ser­vances there is one pre­vail­ing cus­tom, which is, that though there should be noth­ing at hand but part of their own gifts, the trays are not al­lowed to go back with­out some tri­fling things to keep the cus­tom in full force.

[1] The _Ko­ran_ (iv. 3) al­lows Musalmans to mar­ry 'by twos, or threes, or fours'; but the pas­sage has been in­ter­pret­ed in var­ious ways.

[2] _Barat_.

[3] _Duli_, 'the An­glo-​In­di­an 'dhooly'. Such wives are so called be­cause they are brought to the hous­es of their hus­bands in an in­for­mal way, with­out a reg­ular mar­riage pro­ces­sion.

[4] The King of Vi­jayana­gar had twelve thou­sand wives: four thou­sand fol­lowed him on foot and served in the kitchen; the same num­ber marched with him on horse­back; the re­main­der in lit­ters, and two or three thou­sand of them were bound to burn them­selves with his corpse (Ni­co­lo Con­ti, _In­dia in the Fif­teenth Cen­tu­ry_, part iii, p. 6). In Oris­sa a palm-​leaf record states that one monarch died pre­ma­ture­ly just as he had mar­ried his six­ty-​thou­sandth wife, and a Eu­ro­pean trav­eller speaks of a lat­er prince who had four thou­sand ladies (Sir W. Hunter, _Oris­sa_. ii, 132 f.). Manuc­ci states that there were more than thir­ty thou­sand wom­en in the palace of Shah Ja­han at Dhe­li, and that he usu­al­ly had two thou­sand wom­en of dif­fer­ent races in his zenana (_Sto­ria de Ma­jor_, i. 195, ii. 330). Tip­poo Sul­tan of Mysore mar­ried nine hun­dred wom­en (Jaf­fur Shur­reef, _Qanoon-​e-​Is­lam_, 93).

[5] There in ev­idence that in­fan­ti­cide did pre­vail among some Musalman tribes. Where ac­tu­al in­fan­ti­cide has dis­ap­peared, it has of­ten been re­placed by ne­glect of fe­male in­fants, ex­cept in those castes where, ow­ing to a scarci­ty of girls, they com­mand a high price.--_Re­ports Cen­sus of In­dia_, 1911, i. 216 ff; _Pan­jab_, 1911, i. 231.

[6] Lud­hi­ana.

[7] No record of this procla­ma­tion has been traced in the his­to­ries of the time.

[8] The bride is of­ten se­lect­ed by pray­ing for a dream in sleep, by ma­nip­ulat­ing the rosary, or by open­ing the _Ko­ran_ at ran­dom, and read­ing the first verse which comes un­der the eye. An­oth­er method is to as­cer­tain to which of the el­ements--fire, air, earth, wa­ter--the ini­tials of the names of the pair cor­re­spond. If these agree, it is be­lieved that the en­gage­ment will be pros­per­ous.--Jaf­fur Shur­reef, _Qanoon-​e-​Is­lam_, 37.

[9] _Mang­ni_, 'the ask­ing'.

[10] Com­pare the full ac­count of brides' dress in Mrs. F. Parks, _Wan­der­ings of a Pil­grim_, i. 425.

[11] _Ja­ma_.

[12] _Dalan_.

[13] _Bahu_, prop­er­ly a son's wife or daugh­ter-​in-​law: com­mon­ly ap­plied to a bride or young wife.

[14] Prob­ably the _gen­da_ or French marigold (_Tagetes erec­ta_).

[15] Sum­dun is al­ways the ti­tle of the bride's mam­ma; Bo­hue, that of the young wife, and, there­fore, my thus des­ig­nat­ing her here is pre­ma­ture. [_Samd­han_ means a con­nex­ion by mar­riage. The moth­ers of bride and bride­groom are _samd­han_ to each oth­er.]

[16] _Kuth, kut­tha_, the gum of _Aca­cia cat­echu_.

[17] The shad­dock (_Cit­rus de­cumana_) is called _chakoira_; pos­si­bly con­fused with the next.

[18] _Khar­buzah, Cu­cumis me­lo_.

[19] _Ananas, Ananas­sa sali­va_.

[20] Gua­va.

[21] _Shar­ifah, Anona squamosa_.

[22] _Kam­rak, Aver­rhoa Caram­bo­la_.

[23] _Ja­mun, ja­man, Eu­ge­nia Jam­bolana_.

[24] _Am, Mangifera in­di­ca_.

[25] _Fal­sa, phal­sa, Greuria asi­at­ica_.

[26] _Kirni, Can­thi­um parv­iflo­rum_.

[27] _Ber, Zizy­phus Ju­ju­ba_.

[28] _Lichi, Nepheli­um Lichi_.

[29] Pos­si­bly some con­fu­sion be­tween _um_, the man­go, and _alu, aru_, the peach.

[30] _Ka­raun­da, Caris­sa Caran­das_.