Marriage is adult and a large price, varying from 12 to 20 head of
cattle, was formerly demanded for the bride. This has now, however,
been reduced in some localities to two or three animals and a rupee
each in lieu of the others, or cattle may be entirely dispensed with
and some grain given. If a man cannot afford to purchase a bride he may
serve his father-in-law for seven years as the condition of obtaining
her. A proposal for marriage is made by placing a brass cup and three
arrows at the door of the girl's father. He will remove these once to
show his reluctance, and they will be again replaced. If he removes
them a second time, it signifies his definite refusal of the match,
but if he allows them to remain, the bridegroom's friends go to him
and say, 'We have noticed a beautiful flower in passing through your
village and desire to pluck it.' The wedding procession goes from the
bride's to the bridegroom's house as among the Gonds; this custom,
as remarked by Mr. Bell, is not improbably a survival of marriage
by capture, when the husband carried off his wife and married her
at his own house. At the marriage the bride and bridegroom come out,
each sitting on the shoulders of one of their relatives. The bridegroom
pulls the bride to his side, when a piece of cloth is thrown over them,
and they are tied together with a string of new yarn wound round them
seven times. A cock is sacrificed, and the cheeks of the couple are
singed with burnt bread. They pass the night in a veranda, and next
day are taken to a tank, the bridegroom being armed with a bow and
arrows. He shoots one through each of seven cowdung cakes, the bride
after each shot washing his forehead and giving him a green twig for
a tooth-brush and some sweets. This is symbolical of their future
course of life, when the husband will procure food by hunting, while
the wife will wait on him and prepare his food. Sexual intercourse
before marriage between a man and girl of the tribe is condoned so
long as they are not within the prohibited degrees of relationship,
and in Kalahandi such liaisons are a matter of ordinary occurrence. If
a girl is seduced by one man and subsequently married to another, the
first lover usually pays the husband a sum of seven to twelve rupees
as compensation. In Sambalpur a girl may choose her own husband, and
the couple commonly form an intimacy while engaged in agricultural
work. Such unions are known as Udhlia or 'Love in the fields.' If the
parents raise any objection to the match the couple elope and return
as man and wife, when they have to give a feast to the caste, and if
the girl was previously betrothed to another man the husband must pay
him compensation. In the last case the union is called Paisa moli or
marriage by purchase. A trace of fraternal polyandry survives in the
custom by which the younger brothers are allowed access to the elder
brother's wife till the time of their own marriage. Widow-marriage
and divorce are recognised.