In some parts of India the infant girls are merely subjected to an
"irrevocable betrothal" for the time being, while in others they fall
at once into the clutches of their degraded husbands.[264] In either
case they have absolutely no choice in the selection of a
life-partner. As Dubois remarks (I., 198):
"In negotiating marriage the inclinations of the future
spouses are never attended to. Indeed, it would be
ridiculous to consult girls of that age; and,
accordingly, the choice devolves entirely upon the
parents," "The ceremony of the 'bhánwar,' or circuit of
the pole or branch, is," says Dalton (148), "observed
in most Hindu marriages.... Its origin is curious.. As
a Hindu bridegroom of the upper classes has no
opportunity of trotting out his intended previous to
marriage, and she is equally in the dark regarding the
paces of her lord, the two are made to walk around the
post a certain number of times to prove that they are
sound in limb."
Even the _accidental_ coincidence of the choice of a husband with the
girl's own preference--should any such exist--is rendered impossible
by a superstitious custom which demands that a horoscope must in all
cases be taken to see if the signs are propitious, as Ramabai
Sarasvati informs us (35), adding that if the signs are not propitious
another girl is chosen. Sometimes a dozen are thus rejected, and the
number may rise to three hundred before superstition is satisfied and
a suitable match is found! The same writer gives the following
pathetic instance of the frivolous way in which the girls are disposed
of. A father is bathing in the river; a stranger comes in, the father
asks him to what caste he belongs, and finding that all right, offers
him his nine-year-old daughter. The stranger accepts, marries the
child the next day, and carries her to his home nine hundred miles
away. These poor child brides, she says, are often delighted to get
married, because they are promised a ride on an elephant!
But the most extraordinary revelation made by this doctor is contained
in the following paragraph which, I again beg the reader to remember,
was not written by a humorous globetrotter or by the librettist of
_Pinafore_, but by a native Hindoo woman who is bitterly in earnest, a
woman who left her country to study the condition of women in England
and America, and who then returned to devote her life to the attempt
to better the dreadful fate of her country-women:
"As it is absurd to assume that girls should be allowed
to choose their future husbands, in their infancy, this
is done for them by their parents or guardians. In the
northern part of this country the _family barber_ is
generally employed to select the boys and girls to be
married, it being considered _too humiliating and mean
an act_ on the part of the parents and guardians to go
out and seek their future daughters and sons-in-law."