After a few days at her husband's house the bride returns home, and
though she pays short visits to his family from time to time, she
does not go to live with her husband until she is adolescent, when the
usual _pathoni_ or going-away ceremony is performed to celebrate the
event. The people repeat a set of verses containing advice which the
bride's mother is supposed to give her on this occasion, in which the
desire imputed to the caste to make money out of their daughters is
satirised. They are no doubt libellous as being a gross exaggeration,
but may contain some substratum of truth. The gist of them is as
follows: "Girl, if you are my daughter, heed what I say. I will
make you many sweetmeats and speak words of wisdom. Always treat
your husband better than his parents. Increase your private money
(_khamora_) by selling rice and sugar; abuse your sisters-in-law to
your husband's mother and become her favourite. Get influence over
your husband and make him come with you to live with us. If you
cannot persuade him, abandon your modesty and make quarrels in the
household. Do not fear the village officers, but go to the houses of
the patel [393] and Pandia [394] and ask them to arrange your quarrel."
It is not intended to imply that Panwar women behave in this manner,
but the passage is interesting as a sidelight on the joint family
system. It concludes by advising the girl, if she cannot detach her
husband from his family, to poison him and return as a widow. This
last counsel is a gibe at the custom which the caste have of taking
large sums of money for a widow on her second marriage. As such
a woman is usually adult, and able at once to perform the duties
of a wife and to work in the fields, she is highly valued, and her
price ranges from Rs. 25 to Rs. 1000. In former times, it is stated,
the disposal of widows did not rest with their parents but with the
Sendia or headman of the caste. The last of them was Karun Panwar
of Tumsar, who was empowered by the Bhonsla Raja of Nagpur to act in
this manner, and was accustomed to receive an average sum of Rs. 25
for each widow or divorced woman whom he gave away in marriage. His
power extended even to the reinstatement of women expelled from the
caste, whom he could subsequently make over to any one who would
pay for them. At the end of his life he lost his authority among
the people by keeping a Dhimar woman as a mistress, and he had no
successor. A Panwar widow must not marry again until the expiry of
six months after her husband's death. The stool on which a widow
sits for her second marriage is afterwards stolen by her husband's
friends. After the wedding when she reaches the boundary of his
village the axle of her cart is removed, and a new one made of _tendu_
wood is substituted for it. The discarded axle and the shoes worn by
the husband at the ceremony are thrown away, and the stolen stool is
buried in a field. These things, Mr. Hira Lal points out, are regarded
as defiled, because they have been accessories in an unlucky ceremony,
that of the marriage of a widow. On this point Dr. Jevons writes [395]
that the peculiar characteristic of taboo is this transmissibility of
its infection or contagion. In ancient Greece the offerings used for
the purification of the murderer became themselves polluted during
the process and had to be buried. A similar reasoning applies to the
articles employed in the marriage of a widow. The wood of the _tendu_
or ebony tree [396] is chosen for the substituted axle, because it has
the valuable property of keeping off spirits and ghosts. When a child
is born a plank of this wood is laid along the door of the room to
keep the spirits from troubling the mother and the newborn infant. In
the same way, no doubt, this wood keeps the ghost of the first husband
from entering with the widow into her second husband's village. The
reason for the ebony-wood being a spirit-scarer seems to lie in its
property of giving out sparks when burnt. "The burning wood gives
out showers of sparks, and it is a common amusement to put pieces
in a camp fire in order to see the column of sparks ascend." [397]
The sparks would have a powerful effect on the primitive mind and
probably impart a sacred character to the tree, and as they would
scare away wild animals, the property of averting spirits might
come to attach to the wood. The Panwars seldom resort to divorce,
except in the case of open and flagrant immorality on the part of
a wife. "They are not strict," Mr. Low writes, [398] "in the matter
of sexual offences within the caste, though they bitterly resent and
if able heavily avenge any attempt on the virtue of their women by an
outsider. The men of the caste are on the other hand somewhat notorious
for the freedom with which they enter into relations with the women
of other castes." They not infrequently have Gond and Ahir girls from
the families of their farmservants as members of their households.