The barber has also numerous and important duties [295] in connection
with marriages and other festival occasions. He acts as the Brahman's
assistant, and to the lower castes, who cannot employ a Brahman,
he is himself the matrimonial priest. The important part which he
plays in marriage ceremonies has led to his becoming the matchmaker
among all respectable castes. He searches for a suitable bride or
bridegroom, and is often sent to inspect the other party to a match
and report his or her defects to his clients. He may arrange the
price or dowry, distribute the invitations and carry the presents
from one house to the other. He supplies the leaf-plates and cups
which are used at weddings, as the family's stock of metal vessels
is usually quite inadequate for the number of guests. The price of
these is about 4 annas (4d.) a hundred. He also provides the _torans_
or strings of leaves which are hung over the door of the house and
round the marriage-shed. At the feast the barber is present to hand
to the guests water, betel-leaf and pipes as they may desire. He also
partakes of the food, seated at a short distance from the guests,
in the intervals of his service. He lights the lamps and carries
the torches during the ceremony. Hence he was known as Masalchi or
torch-bearer, a name now applied by Europeans to a menial servant who
lights and cleans the lamps and washes the plates after meals. The
barber and his wife act as prompters to the bride and bridegroom,
and guide them through the complicated ritual of the wedding ceremony,
taking the couple on their knees if they are children, and otherwise
sitting behind them. The barber has a prescriptive right to receive
the clothes in which the bridegroom goes to the bride's house, as
on the latter's arrival he is always presented with new clothes by
the bride's father. As the bridegroom's clothes may be an ancestral
heirloom, a compact is often made to buy them back from the barber,
and he may receive as much as Rs. 50 in lieu of them. When the first
son is born in a family the barber takes a long bamboo stick, wraps
it round with cloth and puts an earthen pot over it and carries this
round to the relatives, telling them the good news. He receives a
small present from each household.