The Gandas have exogamous groups or septs of the usual low-caste type,
named after plants, animals or other inanimate objects. Marriage is
prohibited within the sept, and between the children of two sisters,
though the children of brothers and sisters may marry. If a girl
arrives at maturity without a husband having been found for her,
she is wedded to a spear stuck up in the courtyard of the house,
and then given away to anybody who wishes to take her. A girl going
wrong with a man of the caste is married to him by the ceremony
employed in the case of widows, while her parents have to feed the
caste. But a girl seduced by an outsider is permanently expelled. The
betrothal is marked by a present of various articles to the father of
the bride. Marriages must not be celebrated during the three rainy
months of Shrawan, Bhadon or Kunwar, nor during the dark fortnight
of the month, nor on a Saturday or Tuesday. The marriage-post is
of the wood of the mahua tree, and beneath it are placed seven
cowries and seven pieces of turmeric. An elderly male member of the
caste known as the Sethia conducts the ceremony, and the couple go
five times round the sacred pole in the morning and thrice in the
evening. When the bride and bridegroom return home after the wedding,
an image of a deer is made with grass and placed behind the ear of the
bride. The bridegroom then throws a toy arrow at it made of grass or
thin bamboo, and is allowed seven shots. If he fails to knock it out
of her ear after these the bride's brother takes it and runs away and
the bridegroom must follow and catch him. This is clearly a symbolic
process representing the chase, of the sort practised by the Khonds
and other primitive tribes, and may be taken as a reminiscence among
the Gandas of their former life in the forests. The remarriage of
widows is permitted, and the younger brother of the deceased husband
takes his widow if he wishes to do so. Otherwise she may marry whom
she pleases. A husband may divorce his wife for adultery before the
caste committee, and if she marries her lover he must repay to the
husband the expenses incurred by the latter on his wedding.