ORIENTAL NUPTIALS
_A Parsi Wedding_
THE Parsi gentlemen are charming. The Parsi women are delicate in
appearance, refined and womanly, and, I thought, rather stupid; but very
possibly what I was rude enough to think stupidity was reserve. I found
it quite impossible to get acquainted with them, or at least to pass
beyond the barriers of slight acquaintance. I “made friends” with but
one Parsi woman. She was dainty in all her ways, gracious and hospitable
to a degree, an ideal housekeeper, from a Parsi point of view, a loved
and loving wife, a devoted and happy mother; but she was rather
uneducated, and had, I thought, no great mental capacity.
When we were first living in Bombay, I found the Parsi men rather
difficult. My husband would tell me that this one was decidedly clever,
and the other one highly educated; yet, if I entered the room where he
was sitting with both of them, they invariably froze conversationally.
One condoled with me about the weather, and the other asked me if I did
not find the Bombay shops superior to those in Calcutta. I replied that
I never went shopping, that if I really had to have anything, my nurse
bought it for me. One of them laughed heartily and evidently thought
that I was joking; the other cast down his eyes and looked embarrassed.
He went home an hour later and told his wife that I was not quite right
in my head, and that my husband had to carry about a nurse for me, who
dressed me and undressed me, and that I was not allowed to go into a
shop alone.
It was some weeks before I could make those two Parsi men—of whom we
saw a great deal—understand that they could discuss in my presence
anything of serious importance, not to mention the doings of the French
Academy or the writings of Herbert Spencer, without being guilty of a
rudeness analogous to that of speaking before me in a language with
which I was unacquainted. We became good friends, and they were angels
of patience in telling me all I longed to know about the history of
their race, its manners and customs, and its belief. But I suspect that
they would have liked me better had I thought—as did the wife of a
prominent Parsi at Poona—that St. Petersburg was the capital of Italy!
I believe that there are no men in the world more kind to their women
than the Parsi men; but they do not regard those women as their
intellectual fellows; nor do the women aspire to be so regarded. This
simplifies the Parsi marriage question amazingly—simplifies it to the
loss of the men and to the gain of the women.
The Parsis are in a transition state. The customs that they all rigidly
observed fifty years ago are now observed by less than half their
number, and rarely with entire rigidity. The Parsi wedding I saw a
little over two years ago in Bombay was not the Parsi wedding of the
last century; but it was picturesque in the extreme. It was un-European
and merits description, I think; for, were I to return to Bombay in
1950, I should expect to find almost all the old Parsi customs quite
discarded.
The father of the bridegroom came a few days before the marriage to
invite us to the ceremony and to the feast, which was very polite of
him, as invitations are usually given by priests, and only when an
especial compliment is intended does the father of one of the
contracting parties go in person to bid the guest. In this instance it
was a love match, which always makes it a bit more interesting to a
woman; and the bride was exquisitely pretty, which always makes it more
interesting to a man. Both bride and bridegroom belonged to very wealthy
and prominent Parsi families. All the Bombay Parsi _élite_ were there.
Child marriages are still, I believe, a part of the Parsi code, but not
of the Parsi custom. Children are still betrothed very young, but not
often. The bridegroom of whom I am writing was about twenty-seven, and
the bride looked about twenty.
At four in the afternoon, the bridegroom and his friends marched to the
house of the bride. The men were all dressed in white, and very striking
they looked. Almost every well-to-do (_i.e._ well-fed) Parsi man is
handsome. A band of music was with the procession, and played
unceasingly. Formerly the Parsi women formed a considerable part of
every Parsi marriage procession; but on this occasion there were only
men. The bridegroom’s mother had preceded him, inconspicuously, to the
house of the bride, bearing with her the prescribed gift of a dress. At
the end of the procession walked a score or more of coolies carrying on
their heads shallow baskets, heaped with cocoanuts. At every turn of the
street, a cocoanut was waved about the bridegroom’s head, then broken
and thrown away. Some time before the bride’s house was reached, her
only sister met the procession, carrying three silver chattees. Into the
upper one the bridegroom dropped a rupee. That was, I believe,
symbolical of his determination never to fail to befriend his wife’s
family. At the threshold of the house, an aunt of the bride threw rice
and water and an uncooked egg beneath the feet of the bridegroom; then
she welcomed him in; and he was careful to put his right foot in before
his left.
We women—about two hundred Parsis and three Europeans—were waiting in
a large, handsomely-furnished room. The bride’s father had spent some
time in France when a young man, and Louis XV. cabinets were crowded
between black, carved Indian tables, and creamy Chinese ivories. The
Parsi ladies sat on small silk carpets that had been placed for them on
the floor. I and my two compatriots (whom I did not know) sat in solemn
elegance upon a solitary satin sofa. The men all sat about the walls, on
low, narrow, backless benches, and I noticed that the European men, of
whom there were about twenty, looked neither graceful nor comfortable.
The father of the bride and the father of the groom sat down side by
side, and the chief priest blessed them. In the centre of the room a low
platform of stone had been built; this is called the “wedding booth.”
Sometimes a complete booth is erected and richly decorated, but not
invariably. The stone foundation, however, must be laid. It denotes
purity and chastity. Chastity in the best and broadest sense is the
beginning and end of the Parsi religion. Two chairs were placed, side by
side, upon the stone foundation. Then the bride came in with her mother.
I caught my breath, she was so pretty! Her skin was fairer than mine,
but with a lovely olive tinge in it. Her scarlet lips were trembling
with a shy, half smile. She was dressed, or rather wrapped, in a
pale-blue satin sari; it was edged with a delicate embroidery of pink
and gold. Her little hands were heavy with gems. Her slender throat was
hidden by a string of big pearls, and a string of bigger diamonds. There
were diamonds at her girdle, and diamonds caught here and there her
satin draperies. As she moved slowly forward, her graceful garment half
hid, half revealed, the delicate outlines of her _svelte_ figure. She
lifted her big brown eyes for a half instant to the face of the man who
was waiting for her, and I thought of Byron’s Zadie.
The contracting couple were seated upon the chairs that were on the
stone. They were facing each other. Then the ceremony proper began. A
priest tied their right hands together with a soft, silken, bright-red
thread. Two younger priests stepped forward, carrying a large piece of
yellow cloth. This they held between the bride and bridegroom. The chief
priest stood near them, holding in one hand a lit censer and in the
other a dish of benjamin. Another priest gave a handful of rice to both
the bridegroom and his bride. The chief priest began a long prayer. At a
certain word, for which the young couple listened intently, he threw the
incense into the fire. At that moment the couple threw their handfuls of
rice each into the other’s face. Then their position was changed, and
they were placed side by side. Two of the priests stood before them, and
two witnesses stood beside them, holding brass plates heaped with rice.
The priests began the marriage blessing. This they recited in Zend and
Sanscrit, and at every sentence they pelted the couple with rice.
Then the priest put the two questions, “Have you espoused her?” and
“Have you espoused him?” He was answered, “Yes, I have espoused her,”
and “Yes, I have espoused him.” The questions and the answers were in
Persian, of which, I believe, the contracting parties, the priests, and
the guests, were equally ignorant.
During the long prayers I looked at the assembled company as often as I
could tear my eyes from the bride’s pretty, flushing face. I saw a royal
banquet once. It was in Munich, in celebration of the marriage of the
King’s brother with the Emperor of Austria’s daughter. I have always
remembered it as a gigantic display of diamonds. But it was
insignificant beside the display of diamonds at that Parsi wedding. Many
of the Parsis in Bombay are very rich. All the Parsis are extravagantly
fond of gems; and the Parsi men dearly delight in decking their women to
the utmost. A European man, who was more bored than interested with the
strange marriage service, told me afterwards that he had tried to
compute how many lakhs of rupees were represented there by
diamonds,—“But I had to give it up after half an hour,” he said; “the
things flashed and danced so, that they made my head ache.” All the
women were exquisitely dressed. The Parsis have an almost French
abundance of good taste. Indeed they are like the French in many ways.
The bride’s mother wore more diamonds than any lady present, excepting
only the bridegroom’s mother. It was hard to say which of those two was
the most bejewelled, and harder still to understand how they held their
heads up, and moved their arms.
After the marriage benediction there were other ceremonies, more
fanciful and less interesting. The husband and wife (which they now
were) ate out of one dish, and each found in it a ring.
The marriage feast followed in an adjacent room. This was a very
European innovation. Among strictly conservative Parsis the marriage
feasts are all held at the house of the bridegroom’s father.
Upon the floor of the “dining-room” were laid long silken carpets. They
were about a foot and a half wide, and about fifty feet long. Upon them
the Parsi guests seated themselves. We Europeans were shown to an
elaborately-laid table, in an adjacent room. I asked permission to sit
and eat with the Parsis. They made me very welcome, and I ate all sorts
of good things, with my fingers. I do not know whether my intrusion was
felt a pollution, as it would have been at an orthodox Hindoo feast. My
hosts (which they all seemed to feel themselves) were too well bred to
let me feel that I was _de trop_, and I believe they were far too
sensible to resent my respectful curiosity. Indeed the presence of the
Parsi ladies was so very improper that they could well afford to wink at
the greater enormity of eating with one European woman.
When we were living at Khandalah our nearest neighbours were Parsis. I
never grew to know them well. We had very little in common, the graceful
feminine women and I, but my bairns became very much at home in their
bungalow. My boy used to come home with bulging pockets, and I very
often took a surreptitious nibble of the Parsi sweetmeats that had been
given him—they were so very good. But I had tasted nothing in Khandalah
so nice as many of the dishes given me at this Parsi wedding in Bombay.
I had a plantain leaf for a plate, and, as I have said, my fingers for
forks. The other Europeans laughed at me, and told me they had oysters
and champagne and a score of other conventional dainties at their nicely
damasked table. I returned their laugh with something very like a sneer.
I had eaten of a hundred unknown delicacies, and I could have oysters
and champagne galore any time at the hotel.
Except in the matter of hats and caps, many Parsi men, on ordinary
occasions, dress quite like Europeans; but I have never seen a Parsi
woman in European dress. In this respect, at least, they are wiser than
the Japanese women, whom they are like in being fragile, pretty, and
dainty.
Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji said, in a paper read before the Liverpool
Philomathic Society in 1861: “There is neither bigamy nor polygamy
amongst the Parsis. They are simple monogamists.” When Mr. Naoroji wrote
that, it was undoubtedly true. In the strict, narrow sense it is true
now, but in the broadest and most beautiful sense, it is, I think, no
longer wholly true. Chastity is the great law of Parsi life, and the
Parsi women have, I believe, been guarded, not only from any possible
infringement of that law, but even from the knowledge that the law is
ever broken. But I am disinclined to believe that the Parsi men obey the
chief command of their ancestral faith as staunchly as they used to do.
Perhaps, alas, when the Parsi women have learned to mingle as freely
with the Europeans, and to adopt their ways as fully as the Parsi men do
now, they may gain the sad knowledge that there is one law for man and
another for woman—that right is of one sex and wrong of another.
Periodically there is an Occidental agitation for the advancement and
the emancipation of the women of the Orient. As far as that agitation
aims at giving the women of the East medical succour in their hours of
pain, as far as it seeks to teach them the best possibilities and the
best care of their own bodies and of their children’s, it has my warmest
sympathy; but when it attempts their disturbance, mental and moral, I
deplore it. Intellectuality, education, enfranchisement, are all very
fine, but happiness is far finer. Over-educate, abnormally develop
woman’s intellect, create in her a longing for freedom which will gall
her, and you destroy half her happiness. We are very learned, you and I
who live in the West; we understand quadratic equations and we read
Greek; we are man’s equal, or think we are. Let us be satisfied with our
own big mental attainments, and let us leave the Marthas of the East
their placid content, their sweet, unsophisticated happiness.