At a Koshti wedding in Nagpur, the bride and bridegroom with their
parents sit in a circle, and round them a long hempen rope is
drawn seven times; the bride's mother then holds a lamp, while the
bridegroom's mother pours water from a vessel on to the floor. The
Salewars perform the wedding ceremony at the bridegroom's house, to
which the bride is brought at midnight for this purpose. A display of
fireworks is held and the thun or log of wood belonging to the loom
is laid on the ground between the couple and covered with a black
blanket. The bridegroom stands facing the east and places his right
foot on the thun, and the bride stands opposite to him with her left
foot upon it. A Brahman holds a curtain between them and they throw
rice upon each other's heads five times and then sit on the log. The
bride's father washes the feet of the bridegroom and gives him a cloth
and bows down before him. The wedding party then proceed with music
and a display of fireworks to the bridegroom's house and a round of
feasts is given continuously for five days.
The remarriage of widows is freely permitted. In Chanda if the widow
is living with her father he receives Rs. 40 from the second husband,
but if with her father-in-law no price is given. On the day fixed for
the wedding he fills her lap with nuts, cocoanuts, dates and rice,
and applies vermilion to her forehead. During the night she proceeds
to her new husband's house, and, emptying the fruit from her lap into
a dish which he holds, falls at his feet. The wedding is completed
the next day by a feast to the caste-fellows. The procedure appears
to have some symbolical idea of transferring the fruit of her womb to
her new husband. Divorce is allowed, but is very rare, a wife being
too valuable a helper in the Koshti's industry to be put away except
as a last resort. For a Koshti who is in business on his own account
it is essential to have a number of women to assist in sizing the
thread and fixing it on the loom. A wife is really a factory-hand
and a well-to-do Koshti will buy or occasionally steal as many women
as he can. In Bhandara a recent case is known where a man bought
a girl and married her to his son and eight months afterwards sold
her to another family for an increased price. In another case a man
mortgaged his wife as security for a debt and in lieu of interest, and
she lived with his creditor until he paid off the principal. Quarrels
over women not infrequently result in cases of assault and riot.