Note 386.2 — Chapter XIV · MARRIAGE RITES.

Sometimes a man on marrying was received into the clan of the wife. It is now generally recognised that the words “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” could have originated only at a period when it was customary for a husband to go and dwell with his wife’s kin: that is to say, before the development of the patriarchal system on which the Hebrews in later times were organised. Professor Robertson Smith suggests, ingeniously and with probability, that the expression implies “that the husband is conceived as adopted into his wife’s kin”; for, as he has previously pointed out, both in Arabic and in Hebrew (notably in the priestly legislation of the latter) the word for flesh is equivalent to kindred or clan.386.2 Residence is indeed one of the tests of kindred. But it is only one, and by no means a conclusive one. For this reason the stories of Isaac’s marriage and those of Jacob cannot safely be cited in support of this suggestion. The curious incident of the bargain with Shechem is more to the point; for in that case a rite was to be undergone which would have the effect of making Shechemites and Israelites “one people.” If, however, we find cases of marriage where not only does the husband dwell with his wife and her family, but his property and earnings also go to them, or are shared in common with them, this will be further evidence of reception into the kin. Among the Kochh a man is taken on marriage to live with his wife and her mother, and all his property is made over to her.387.1 The Bayaga, a tribe of dwarfs in Equatorial Africa, require the husband to live with his wife’s family, and all the produce of his hunting belongs to them. He may, however, return to his own community and take his wife, but only when he has a son, and that son has killed an elephant. And then he leaves the son behind to fill the place of the daughter taken away.387.2 This appears to be an instance of the archaic system of mother-right in process of decay. Neither the case of the Bayaga nor that of the Kochh goes quite far enough to be decisive. The North American Indians had customs in their various tribes, which exhibited almost all gradations between the complete absorption of the husband in his wife’s clan, and the last stages of dissolution of the system of mother-right. Without discussing them we may turn to two examples in the East Indies where the matter is put beyond doubt. According to Brahman law the wife now enters the gotra of her husband. The ceremonies are very elaborate, and include of course a solemn procession on the bridegroom’s part to fetch the bride. He is formally welcomed first by the bride’s father, and then by her mother. Follows a rite which, if it mean anything, is a survival of reception into the wife’s kin once practised either by the Aryan invaders of India, or the aboriginal tribes with whom they intermarried. It is called “Satusi or the seven lights of Hymen. Seven married ladies (including the bride’s mother or, if she be a widow, one of the bride’s aunts) in their best attire, each with a small torch made of chita-twig and cotton steeped in oil, go round the bridegroom in succession, led by the bride’s mother, who carries on her head a kulá or flat bamboo-basket, on which are placed twenty-one small lights made of dhatura-fruits. As they go round, they sprinkle libations of water, one of them blows a shell-trumpet, and all vociferate the hymeneal cry of ulu-ulu. After going seven times round the bridegroom, the lights are thrown one by one over his head, so that they fall behind him. The kulá is then picked up and placed in front of the bridegroom, and the bride’s mother takes her stand upon it, and touches the forehead of the bridegroom with water, paddy and durba-grass, betel and areca nut, white mustard-seed, curds, white sandal-paste, vermilion, a looking-glass, a comb, a bit of clay from the bed of the Ganges, a yak’s tail, shells, a cluster of plantains, and certain other odds and ends, while the rest of the women keep up the cry of ulu-ulu. The bridegroom’s height is measured with a thin thread, which the bride’s mother eats in a bit of plantain. She then places a weaver’s shuttle between his folded hands and ties them together with thread, and calls upon him, now that he has been bound hand and foot, to bleat once like a sheep to signify his humility and subjection. Last of all, she touches his breast with a padlock and turns the key, whereby the door of speech is closed to the passage of hard words against the bride.”389.1 Later accretions are obvious here, but the substance of the ceremony is ancient and can only be explained in one way. In Sumatra there was an old form of marriage, which has been prohibited for a century past, called ambel anak. A man thus married paid no money to the wife’s father, but entered his family on the footing of a son. He became entirely separated from his own kin, who renounced all interest in him, and he lost his right of inheritance. All his earnings belonged to his wife’s family, who became liable to any debts he might contract after marriage and responsible for his crimes, just as his own family were before. His wife’s family might divorce him, in which case he went forth naked as he came. The custom was evidently in decay long before its abolition, for the husband’s status was in some respects hardly so good as that of a natural-born son, while on the other hand there were provisions for enabling him to redeem himself, his wife and children, by paying her jujur or bride-price, and an additional sum for any daughters who had been born. But this could only be accomplished with the goodwill of his wife’s family, because he was incapable of accumulating any property apart from the common stock of the family.389.2