Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 6 of 7Thurston, Edgar
History
Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 6 of 7
Thurston, Edgar
Caste -- India, South; Ethnology -- India, South; India, South -- Social life and customs; Tribes -- India, South
As regards the marriage customs of the Savaras, Mr. Fawcett writes that
"a Saora may marry a woman of his own or of any other village. A man
may have as many as three wives, or, if he is a man of importance,
such as Gomango of a large village, he may have four. Not that there
is any law in the matter, but it is considered that three, or at
most four, are as many as a man can manage. For his first marriage,
a man chooses a young woman he fancies; his other wives are perhaps
her sisters, or other women who have come to him. A woman may leave
her husband whenever she pleases. Her husband cannot prevent her. When
a woman leaves her husband to join herself to another, the other pays
the husband she has left a buffalo and a pig. Formerly, it is said,
if he did not pay up, the man she left would kill the man to whom she
went. Now arbitration comes into play. I believe a man usually takes
a second wife after his first has had a child; if he did so before,
the first wife would say he was impotent. As the getting of the
first wife is more troublesome and expensive than getting the others,
she is treated the best. In some places, all a man's wives are said
to live together peaceably. It is not the custom in the Kolakotta
villages. Knowing the wives would fight if together, domestic felicity
is maintained by keeping up different establishments. A man's wives
will visit one another in the daytime, but one wife will never spend
the night in the house of another. An exception to this is that the
first wife may invite one of the other wives to sleep in her house
with the husband. As each wife has her separate house, so has she her
separate piece of ground on the hill-side to cultivate. The wives will
not co-operate in working each other's cultivation, but they will work
together, with the husband, in the paddy fields. Each wife keeps the
produce of the ground she cultivates in her own house. Produce of the
paddy fields is divided into equal shares among the wives. If a wife
will not work properly, or if she gives away anything belonging to
her husband, she may be divorced. Any man may marry a divorced woman,
but she must pay to her former husband a buffalo and a pig. If a man
catches his wife in adultery (he must see her in the act), he thinks he
has a right to kill her, and her lover too. But this is now generally
(but not always) settled by arbitration, and the lover pays up. A wife
caught in adultery will never be retained as a wife. As any man may
have as many as three wives, illicit attachments are common. During
large feasts, when the Saoras give themselves up to sensuality,
there is no doubt a great deal of promiscuous intercourse. A widow
is considered bound to marry her husband's brother, or his brother's
sons if he has no younger brothers. A number of Saoras once came to me
to settle a dispute. They were in their full dress, with feathers and
weapons. The dispute was this. A young woman's husband was dead, and
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