We pass on next to the Buddhist _marriage-ceremony_. This in Ceylon, Burma, Tibet, Mongolia, and indeed in all Buddhist countries, is properly a purely civil contract witnessed only by parents and guardians. We have already pointed out, that true Buddhism considers celibacy to be the only sure means of attaining real sanctity of character. Consistently with this idea, it has not prescribed any religious ceremony to be performed by monks or priests, as a condition of the validity of marriage[166]. Hence among Buddhists the ceremony of marriage is very simple, and has no religious character, or at any rate no complicated religious observances connected with it, as among the Hindūs[167]. In fact the celibate monks of true Buddhism would be much scandalized if they were asked to take part in the celebration of a wedding, or even to ratify it by their presence. The principal ceremony consists in a feast given by the bridegroom or his parents, to which all the relations, friends, and neighbours are invited. Nevertheless, in most Buddhist countries in the present day the monks manage to have some remunerative work to do in connexion with weddings; for their business is to fix the most auspicious days for the performance of the ceremony, in return for which they receive offerings of various kinds. We know that in India astrology is a chief factor in all marriage-arrangements. Similarly in most Buddhist countries no wedding can take place till the astrologer, who is usually a monk-priest, has been consulted as to lucky and unlucky combinations, and the benign or baleful aspects of planets and stars. For example, in Burma, Saturdays and Thursdays are pronounced unlucky days, and it would be the height of imprudence to marry in certain months of the year. Then, again, a woman born on a Friday would be guilty of utter folly if she married a man born on a Monday, seeing that one or other would soon die[168]; and so on through a long list of auspicious and inauspicious potentialities. It should, however, be set down to the credit of Buddhism that wives and daughters are not imprisoned in Zanānas, as among Hindūs and Muhammadans. I was present at an evening-party given by a rich native of Ceylon, when the ladies of the family were introduced to the European guests, and conversed freely with the rest of the company. Nor is the marriage of mere boys and girls insisted on in Buddhist countries as in India. The bridegroom is seldom of a less age than eighteen or nineteen. Then, again, not only births and marriages, but illnesses and death are in the present day a source of revenue to the Buddhist monkhood. First, as to _sickness_.