The remarriage of a widow must be held during the bright fortnight
of the month, and on any odd day of the fortnight excluding the
first. The couple are seated together on a yoke in a part of the
courtyard cleaned with cowdung, and their clothes are tied together,
while the husband rubs vermilion on his wife's hair. A bachelor should
not take a widow in marriage, and if he does so he must at the same
time also wed a maiden with the regular ceremony, as otherwise he
is likely after death to become a masaan or evil spirit. In order to
avoid this contingency a bachelor who espouses a widow in Kanker is
first wedded to a spear. Turmeric and oil are rubbed on his body and
on the spear, and he walks round it seven times. Divorce is freely
permitted in Chhattisgarh at the instance of either party and for
the most trivial reasons, as a mere allegation of disagreement; but
if a husband puts away his wife when she has not been unfaithful to
him he must give her something for her support. In some localities
no ceremony is performed at all, but a wife or husband who tires of
wedlock simply leaves the other as the case may be. In Bastar a wife
cannot divorce her husband. A divorced woman does not break her glass
bangles until she marries again, when new ones are given to her by
her second husband.