Among the better class of Kasbis a certain caste feeling and
organisation exists. When a girl attains adolescence her mother makes
a bargain with some rich man to be her first consort. Oil and turmeric
are rubbed on her body for five days as in the case of a bride. A
feast is given to the caste and the girl is married to a dagger,
walking seven times round the sacred post with it. Her human consort
then marks her forehead with vermilion and covers her head with her
head-cloth seven times. In the evening she goes to live with him
for as long as he likes to maintain her, and afterwards takes up
the practice of her profession. In this case it is necessary that
the man should be an outsider and not a member of the Kasbi caste,
because the quasi-marriage is the formal commencement on the part of
the woman of her hereditary trade. As already seen, the feeling of
shame and degradation attaching to this profession in Europe appears
to be somewhat attenuated in India, and it is counterbalanced by
that acquiescence in and attachment to the caste-calling which is
the principal feature of Hindu society. And no doubt the life of
the dancing-girl has, at any rate during youth, its attractions
as compared with that of a respectable married woman. Tavernier
tells the story [406] of a Shah of Persia who, desiring to punish a
dancing-girl for having boxed the ears of one of her companions within
his hearing (it being clearly not the effect of the operation on the
patient which annoyed his majesty) made an order that she should be
married. And a more curious instance still is the following from
a recent review: [407] "The natives of India are by instinct and
custom the most conservative race in the world. When I was stationed
at Aurangabad--fifty years ago it is true, but that is but a week
in regard to this question--a case occurred within my own knowledge
which shows the strength of hereditary feeling. An elderly wealthy
native adopted two baby girls, whose mother and family had died
during a local famine. The children grew up with his own girls and
were in all respects satisfactory, and apparently quite happy until
they arrived at the usual age for marriage. They then asked to see
their papa by adoption, and said to him, 'We are very grateful to
you for your care of us, but we are now grown up. We are told our
mother was a Kasbi (prostitute), and we must insist on our rights,
go out into the world, and do as our mother did.'"