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_ All this may indeed be "marvellously pretty and romantic," but I fail to see the least indication of the "higher emotions." Nor can I find them in some further interesting remarks regarding the Hos made by the same author (192-93). Thirty years ago, he says, a girl of the better class cost forty or fifty head of cattle. Result--a decrease in the number of marriages and an increase of immoral intimacies. Sometimes a girl runs away with her lover, but the objection to this is that elopements are not considered respectable.
"It is certainly not from any yearning for celibacy
that the marriage of Singbhum maidens is so long
postponed. The girls will tell you frankly that they do
all they can to please the young men, and I have often
heard them pathetically bewailing their want of
success. They make themselves as attractive as they
can, flirt in the most demonstrative manner, and are
not too coy to receive in public attentions from those
they admire. They may be often seen in well-assorted
pairs returning from market with arms interlaced, and
looking at each other as lovingly as if they were so
many groups of Cupids and Psyches, but with all this
the 'men will not propose.' Tell a maiden you think her
nice-looking, she is sure to reply 'Oh, yes! I am, but
what is the use of it, the young men of my acquaintance
don't see it.'"
Here we note a frankly commercial view of marriage, without any reference to "higher emotions." In this tribe, too, the girls are not allowed the liberty of choice. Indeed, when we examine this point we find that Westermarck is wrong, as usual, in assigning such a privilege to the girls of most of these tribes. He himself is obliged to admit that
"in many of the uncivilized tribes of India parents
are in the habit of betrothing their sons.... The
paternal authority approaches the _patria potestas_
of the ancient Aryan nations."
The Kisans, Mundas, Santals, Marias, Mishmis, Bhils, and Yoonthalin Karens are tribes among whom fathers thus reserve the right of selecting wives for their sons; and it is obvious that in all such cases daughters have still less choice than sons. Colonel Macpherson throws light on this point when he says of the Kandhs:
"The parents obtain the wives of their sons during
their boyhood, as very valuable _domestic servants,_
and _their selections are avowedly made with a view to
utility in this character."_[258]
Rowney reports that the Khond boys are married at the age of ten and twelve to girls of fifteen to sixteen; and among the Reddies it is even customary to marry boys of five or six years to women of sixteen to twenty. The "wife," however, lives with an uncle or relation, who begets children for the boy-husband. When the boy grows up his "wife" is perhaps too old for him, so he in turn takes possession of some other boy's "wife".[259] The young folks are obviously in the habit of obeying implicitly, for as Dalton says (132) of the Kisans, "There is no instance on record of a youth or maiden objecting to the arrangement made for them." With the Savaras, Boad Kandhs, Hos, and Kaupuis, the prevalence of elopements shows that the girls are not allowed their own choice. Lepcha marriages are often made on credit, and are breakable if the payment bargained for is not made to the parent within the specified time. (Rowney, 139.)[260]
[FOOTNOTE 258: Among the Nagas, we read in Dalton, "maidens are prized for their physical strength more than for their beauty and family;" and the reason is not far to seek. "The women have to work incessantly, while the men bask in the sun."]
[FOOTNOTE 259: Shortt in _Trans. Ethnol. Soc_., _N.S._, VII., 464.]
[FOOTNOTE 260: For our purposes it is needless to continue this list; but I may add that of the very few tribes Westermarck ventured to claim specifically for his side, three at any rate--the Miris, Todas, and Kols (Mundas) do not belong there. The state of mind prevalent among the Miris is indicated by Dalton's observation (33) that "two brothers will unite and from the proceeds of their joint labor buy a wife between them." In regard to the Todas, Westermarck apparently forgot what he himself had written about them on a previous page (53), after Shortt:
"When a man marries a girl, she becomes the wife of
his brothers as they successively reach manhood,
and they become the husbands of all her sisters,
when they are old enough to marry."
To speak of "liberty of choice" in such cases, or of the marriage being only "ostensibly" arranged by the parents, is nonsense. As for the Kols, what Dalton says about the Mundas (194) not only indicates that parental interference is more than "ostensible," but makes clear that what these girls enjoy is not free choice but what is euphemistically called "free love," before marriage:
"Among Mundas having any pretensions to respectability
the young people are not allowed to arrange these
affairs [matrimonial] for themselves. Their parents
settle it all for them, French fashion, and after the
liberty they have enjoyed, and the liaisons they are
sure to have made, this interference on the part of the
old folk must be very aggravating to the young ones."
If the dissolute or imbecile advocates of "free love" had their way, we should sink to the level of these wild tribes of India; but there is no danger of our losing again the large "tracts of mind, and thought, and feeling" we have acquired since our ancestors, who came from India, were in such a degraded state as these neighbors of theirs.] _
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