Marriage is usually adult, but in places where the Savars live near
Hindus they have adopted early marriage. A reason for preferring
the latter custom is found in the marriage ceremony, when the bride
and bridegroom must be carried on the shoulders of their relatives
from the bride's house to the bridegroom's. If they are grown up,
this part of the ceremony entails no inconsiderable labour on the
relatives. In the Uriya country, while the Khuntia subdivision of each
_barga_ see nothing wrong in marrying a girl after adolescence, the
Jorias consider it a great sin, to avoid which they sometimes marry
a girl to an arrow before she attains puberty. An arrow is tied to
her hand, and she goes seven times round a mahua branch stuck on an
improvised altar, and drinks _ghi_ and oil, thus creating the fiction
of a marriage. The arrow is then thrown into a river to imply that her
husband is dead, and she is afterwards disposed of by the ceremony of
widow-marriage. If this mock ceremony has not been performed before
the girl becomes adult, she is taken to the forest by a relative and
there tied to a tree, to which she is considered to be married. She
is not taken back to her father's house but to that of some relative,
such as her brother-in-law or grandfather, who is permitted to talk
to her in an obscene and jesting manner, and is subsequently disposed
of as a widow. Or in Sambalpur she may be nominally married to an old
man and then again married as a widow. The Savars follow generally
the local Hindu form of the marriage ceremony. On the return of the
bridal pair seven lines are drawn in front of the entrance to the
bridegroom's house. Some relative takes rice and throws it at the
persons returning with the marriage procession, and then pushes the
pair hastily across the lines and into the house. They are thus freed
from the evil spirits who might have accompanied them home and who
are kept back by the rice and the seven lines. A price of Rs. 5 is
sometimes paid for the bride. In Saugor if the bride's family cannot
afford a wedding feast they distribute small pieces of bread to the
guests, who place them in their head-cloths to show their acceptance
of this substitute. To those guests to whom it is necessary to make
presents five cowries are given. Widow-marriage is allowed, and in
some places the widow is bound to marry her late husband's younger
brother unless he declines to take her. If she marries somebody else
the new husband pays a sum by way of compensation either to her father
or to the late husband's family. Divorce is permitted on the husband's
initiative for adultery or serious disagreement. If the wife wishes
for a divorce she simply runs away from her husband. The Laria Savars
must give a _marti-jiti ka bhat_ or death-feast on the occasion of
a divorce. The Uriyas simply pay a rupee to the headman of the caste.