Marriage is prohibited between members of the same sept and also
between first cousins. In many localities families do not intermarry so
long as they remember any relationship to have existed between them. In
Mandla, Mr. Govind Moreshwar states, the Nadha and Kehera subcastes
do not intermarry; but if a man desires a girl of the other subcaste
he can be admitted into it on giving a feast to the caste-fellows
according to his means, and thus marry her. Two families may exchange
daughters in marriage. A maiden who goes wrong with a man of the
caste or of any higher caste may be readmitted to the community under
penalty of a feast to the caste and of having a lock of her hair cut
off. In the Hindustani Districts women do not accompany the marriage
procession, but in the Maratha Districts they do. Among the Bhanara
Dhimars of Chanda the wedding may be held either at the bride's or the
bridegroom's house. In the former case a bride-price of Rs. 16 is paid,
and in the latter one of Rs. 20, because the expenses of the bride's
family are increased if the wedding is held at her house. A custom
exists among the poorer Dhimars in Chanda of postponing the marriage
ceremony to avoid expense; a man will thus simply take a girl for his
wife, making a payment of Rs. 1-4 or twenty pence to her father and
giving a feast to the community. She will then live in his house as his
wife, and at some subsequent date, perhaps in old age, the religious
ceremony will be held so that the couple may have been properly married
before they die. In this fashion the weddings of grandparents, parents
and children have all been celebrated simultaneously. The Singaria
Dhimars of Chhindwara grow _singara_ or water-nut in tanks, and at
their weddings a crocodile must be killed and eaten. The Sonjharas
or gold-washers must also have a crocodile, but they keep it alive
and worship it, and when the ceremony is concluded let it go back
again to the river. It is natural that castes whose avocations are
connected with rivers and tanks should in a manner deify the most
prominent or most ferocious animal contained in their waters. And
the ceremonial eating of a sacred animal has been recorded among
divers peoples all over the world. At a Dhimar marriage in Bhandara
a net is given to the bridegroom, and _sidori_ or cooked food, tied
in a piece of cloth, to the bride, and they walk out together as if
going to a river to fish, but the bride's brother comes up and stops
them. After a wedding in Mandla they kill a pig and bury it before the
door of the bridegroom's house, covering it with earth, and the bride
and bridegroom step over its body into the house. Widow-marriage is
freely permitted; in Mandla the marriage of a widow may be held on
the night of any day except Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday. Divorce is
allowed, but is of rare occurrence. Adultery on the part of a wife
will be frequently overlooked, and the extreme step of divorcing her
is only taken if she creates a public scandal. In such a case the
parties appear before a meeting of the caste, and the headman asks
them whether they have determined to separate. He then breaks a straw
in token of the disruption of the union, and the husband and wife
must pronounce each other's names in an audible voice. [537] A fee of
Rs. 1-4 is paid to the headman, and the divorce is completed. [538]
In some localities the woman's bangles are also broken. In Jhansi
the fine for keeping a widow is ten rupees and for living with the
wife of another man sixty rupees.