Note 219 — K (continued 6)

A custom is stated by Dr. Shortt219 to prevail among the Yerukalas, by which the first two daughters of a family may be claimed by the maternal uncle as wives for his sons. “The value of a wife is fixed at twenty pagodas. The maternal uncle’s right to the first two daughters is valued at eight out of twenty pagodas, and is carried out thus. If he urges his preferential claim, and marries his own sons to his nieces, he pays for each only twelve pagodas; and similarly if he, from not having sons, or any other cause, foregoes his claim, he receives eight pagodas of the twenty paid to the girl’s parents by anybody else who may marry them.” The price of a wife apparently differs in different localities. For example, it is noted, in the Census report, 1901, that, among the Kongu sub-division of the Koravas, a man can marry his sister’s daughter, and, when he gives his sister in marriage, he expects her to produce a bride for him. His sister’s husband accordingly pays Rs. 7–8–0 out of the Rs. 60 of which the bride price consists, at the wedding itself, and Rs. 2–8–0 more each year until the woman bears a daughter. Some Koravas seem to be even more previous than fathers who enter their infant sons for a popular house at a public school. For their children are said to be espoused even before they are born. Two men, who wish their children to marry, say to one another: “If your wife should have a girl and mine a boy (or vice versâ), they must marry.” And, to bind themselves to this, they exchange tobacco, and the potential bridegroom’s father stands a drink to the future bride’s relations. But if, after the children are grown up, a Brāhman should pronounce the omens unpropitious, the marriage does not take place, and the bride’s father pays back the cost of the liquor consumed at the betrothal. If the marriage is arranged, a pot of water is placed before the couple, and a grass (Cynodon Dactylon) put into the water. This is equal to a binding oath between them.220 Of this grass it is said in the Atharwana Vēda: “May this grass, which rose from the water of life, which has a hundred roots and a hundred stems, efface a hundred of my sins, and prolong my existence on earth for a hundred years.” It is noted by the Rev. J. Cain221 that “at the birth of a daughter, the father of an unmarried little boy often brings a rupee, and ties it in the cloth of the father of the newly born girl. When the girl is grown up, he can claim her for his son. For twenty-five rupees he can claim her much earlier.”