Marriage may be infant or adult, and, as in many places husbands are
difficult to find, girls occasionally remain unmarried till nearly
twenty, and may also be mated to boys younger than themselves. In
northern India a substantial bridegroom-price is paid, which increases
for a well-educated boy, but this custom is not so well established
in the Central Provinces. However, in Damoh it is said that a sum of
Rs. 200 is paid to the bridegroom's family. The marriage ceremony is
performed according to the proper ritual for the highest or Brahma form
of marriage recognised by Manu with Vedic texts. When the bridegroom
arrives at the bride's house he is given sherbet to drink. It is
said that he then stands on a pestle, and the bride's mother throws
wheat-flour balls to the four points of the compass, and shows the
bridegroom a miniature plough, a grinding pestle, a churning-staff and
an arrow, and pulls his nose. The bridegroom's struggles to prevent
his mother-in-law pulling his nose are the cause of much merriment,
while the two parties afterwards have a fight for the footstool on
which he stands. [459] An image of a cow in flour is then brought,
and the bridegroom pierces its nostrils with a little stick of
gold. Kayasths do not pierce the nostrils of bullocks themselves,
but these rites perhaps recall their dependence on agriculture in
their capacity of village accountants.
After the wedding the bridegroom's father takes various kinds of fruit,
as almonds, dates and raisins, and fills the bride's lap with them
four times, finally adding a cocoanut and a rupee. This is a ceremony
to induce fertility, and the cocoanut perhaps represents a child.