Marriage within the _gotra_ or exogamous group and within three
degrees of relationship between persons connected through females
is prohibited. Girls are usually wedded before adolescence, but
no stigma attaches to the family if they remain single beyond this
period. If a girl is seduced by a man of the caste she is married to
him by the _pat_, a simple ceremony used for widows. In the southern
Districts a barber cuts off a lock of her hair on the banks of a
tank or river by way of penalty, and a fast is also imposed on her,
while the caste-fellows exact a meal from her family. If she has an
illegitimate child, it is given away to somebody else, if possible. A
girl going wrong with an outsider is expelled from the caste.
Polygamy is permitted and no stigma attaches to the taking of a second
wife, though it is rarely done except for special family reasons. Among
the Maratha Barais the bride and bridegroom must walk five times
round the marriage altar and then worship the stone slab and roller
used for pounding spices. This seems to show that the trade of the
Pansari or druggist is recognised as being a proper avocation of the
Barai. They subsequently have to worship the potter's wheel. After the
wedding the bride, if she is a child, goes as usual to her husband's
house for a few days. In Chhattisgarh she is accompanied by a few
relations, the party being known as Chauthia, and during her stay in
her husband's house the bride is made to sleep on the ground. Widow
marriage is permitted, and the ceremony is conducted according to the
usage of the locality. In Betul the relatives of the widow take the
second husband before Maroti's shrine, where he offers a nut and some
betel-leaf. He is then taken to the malguzar's house and presents
to him Rs. 1-4-0, a cocoanut and some betel-vine leaf as the price
of his assent to the marriage. If there is a Deshmukh [236] of the
village, a cocoanut and betel-leaf are also given to him. The nut
offered to Maroti represents the deceased husband's spirit, and is
subsequently placed on a plank and kicked off by the new bridegroom
in token of his usurping the other's place, and finally buried to
lay the spirit. The property of the first husband descends to his
children, and failing them his brother's children or collateral heirs
take it before the widow. A bachelor espousing a widow must first go
through the ceremony of marriage with a swallow-wort plant. When a
widower marries a girl a silver impression representing the deceased
first wife is made and worshipped daily with the family gods. Divorce
is permitted on sufficient grounds at the instance of either party,
being effected before the caste committee or _panchayat_. If a husband
divorces his wife merely on account of bad temper, he must maintain her
so long as she remains unmarried and continues to lead a moral life.